


The Duality of Light

by MoonbeamMadness



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure, Avad being a jealous dick, Drama, Erend being a little done with all of it, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, Nil doesn't know what he is, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:01:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 62,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26968690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonbeamMadness/pseuds/MoonbeamMadness
Summary: Aloy picked up a shadow somewhere on her travels.A look at Aloy and Nil's relationship through various events throughout the game and beyond, as Aloy tries to make sense of her role in this new world and Nil tries to work out who he really is beneath the blood
Relationships: Aloy/Nil (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 50
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

She wasn't like anyone he'd ever known. Hair like fire. Eyes like the wild, emerald jungle. A curious, cautious creature with sharp teeth and a long reach. He watched people gravitate to her. Drawn in by her attractive face - her kind words, but he could see that she was a woman on a mission. One who didn't care to keep quiet - didn't care that Carja women were normally soft spoken, and Oseram women wouldn't be within fifty miles of bloodshed if their leaders had anything to do with it. The Nora Huntress _danced_ with death. Nil had seen her grin in the heat of battle, despite her tempered words to him claiming not to enjoy it. Yes, his own people called her Nora _, savage_. But they didn't truly know the meaning of the word. And Nil suspected it concealed a deep fear they held, knowing that at their border was a tribe that trained every child for battle, regardless of whether they peed standing, and they had little love for the Carja or their gods.

Nil had fought enough wars against enough peoples to know that savagery was simply a state of mind. An unshackling of conscience. When he killed on behalf of the sun-king he'd seen honorable men and women commit gleeful atrocities for no other reason than because their commanders told them they could. Their god would absolve them of their guilt. Their King would reward them for their loyalty _._ How easily they forgot themselves _. He'd_ been ordered to do things he ordinarily would never have done - the reason he'd volunteered himself for prosecution - but Nil had long since given up on the notion that he was a good man. Those crimes committed on the battlefield followed you after. They _changed_ you. And what humans were truly capable of when they believed there would be no repercussions - when someone told them they could - was something he still thought about frequently, though guilt no longer plagued him like it had. He'd long since come to terms with the man he'd become.

It was an exciting occasion that his paths crossed with the Nora hunter. Sometimes he could admit that when pickings turned slim he actively sought her out; following the trail of sparking machines at the roadside. The whispers from traders about the girl with a spear and the ability to tame machines. Trouble followed her in a way that livened up Nil's days and filled his nights with dreamless, exhausted sleep. She was a mystery. Not religious like the Carja. Not superstitious like her Nora. Not brisk and unbending like the Oseram. His hunting partner was always asking questions. And though their time together hunting was always too brief, each meeting left a mark on him; counted in scars and near misses. His treasured memories. She looked at the world with reason and a detailed eye that he could appreciate. In conversation, they agreed on very little but that was all talk, Nil surmised. Just words without weight. In the shouts and the screams of battle they spoke a different language, and in that tongue they were of one mind on most.

Back to back they fought, arrows flying as she ducked and weaved, her body relaxed despite the threat of injury and death. When all their enemies lay strewn at their feet she turned to him and there was a splattering of blood across her cheek that stilled the breath in his lungs. For a woman that would continuously try and cool his impatient pursuit of death, watching her fight - watching her cut and carve and hammer her way through opponents filled him almost with as much pleasure as the act of killing itself.

But they were never made to suffer. Quick. Efficient. Surgical kills.

" _Animals deserve a clean death_ ," She'd said. Repeated softly. Something from memory, perhaps.

Nil had nodded in understanding. No words were needed. She was nothing if not honest. She didn't lie. Even when lies were more convenient than the truth.

The days hunting had been good. Twenty or so bandits escorted from the world of the living. Blood in the earth and the air so thick and heavy that even the slaves they'd saved had deemed the camp unsalvageable and been on their way, disappearing into the trees.

Nil had stayed to retrieve what he could and went to clean off at the nearby stream. The cold mountain water washing the blood and gore from his skin and armour downstream. The small wounds he hadn't noticed he'd taken, stung and he relished that little painful reminder that he was still alive. That his foes were dead.

A rustling of leaves - a shimmer at the corner of his eye made him spin and Nil reached for his bow, holding in a sharp breath as he scanned the treeline. He saw nothing. Not a fox, not a boar, not a machine.

Not his huntress, either.

In the back of his mind gears turned and Nil knew what it was he was facing. Knew that of all the animals and machines only one could disappear from sight at will like that - only one favored creeping up on their prey and striking from the shadows unseen. Nil notched an arrow and took a soft, quiet breath. There was no point in hiding. It _knew_ where he was. He could only hope there was just the one waiting for him; stalkers usually hunted in packs.

And then he saw it as it moved, dropping a sensor; it's camouflage falling for just a moment before kicking back in. Nil didn't move - didn't so much as breathe as he followed the distortion of air and light with his eyes. He grit his teeth at the noise his bow string made as he drew back as hard as he could and held, waiting for his moment to strike. Possibly the only arrow he'd get out if he missed. He'd no shock ammunition so he aimed at what he hoped would be it's stealth generator and made ready to roll when it naturally decided to retaliate. Nil could identify the location of a bandit by smell of sweat and filth alone. Could hunt them in the dark. But his partner was more equipped to deal with machines. He would always avoid them where he could.

Nil tried not to think about failure but when he fired the first arrow and was rewarded with the screech of angry gears and the sudden appearance of the metal beast, something loosened in his chest. He could fight what he could see. And he could now see it. He watched the gun on its back glow and he rolled to the side, notching another arrow as bullets hit the ground where he'd been kneeling, spraying his clean armour with mud. He aimed for the most vulnerable spots on the beast he could see and fired arrow after arrow as it ran toward him now, and finally when the last arrow thudded through it's neck and it fell, it was close enough for Nil to make out the old dried blood between it's claws. The stench of ancient carnage long seeped through it's gears and armour. 

The air he'd been holding in his lungs left his chest and he felt the tension leave his body for just a moment before he reminded himself that stalkers rarely hunted alone.

Nil quickly moved to the long grass, keeping as low as he could while avoiding the flares this one had already dropped. He crouched there, waiting and watching for any signs of movement; bringing his pounding heart slowly under control 

And then he felt it; the tickle of air across the hairs on his arm that sent electricity through him and he froze as the beast brushed by. Slowly Nil looked up to see the telltale ripple hovering over. It stopped walking and flickered into existence long enough for him to see the empty stare on its face - just long enough for a thought to flash through his mind. Just one. _At least it's not a bandit._

But death didn't seem to come for him as he expected it would and he watched as cables and wires moved along it's neck, winding and twisting, releasing patches of armour as they went. And suddenly the machine stepped away from a certain kill and Nil saw her rise from the grass on the other side, spear in hand glowing a piercing blue.

"Shoo, find the others," she whispered to it and it ran off into the trees. Nil heard the grinding and screeching of metal on metal as it engaged something he couldn't see beyond the tree line. She looked down to him and over at the other stalker he'd felled and he saw the appreciation in her eyes. "We need to get out of here. That override won't hold long,"

Nil stood and followed her as she navigated away from the commotion. She'd saved his life. Even knowing what he was. Knowing that he was a remorseless killer, undeserving of it, she'd saved him.

"I'm in your debt," he bowed slightly.

"Yes, well, I'm fairly sure the end you're looking for isn't to wind up a stalkers stain on the rocks,"

"It's not my own death I'm seeking."

The Huntress had the nerve to snort at his answer.

"Sure," She took a draught of water from a skin at her hip. There was still blood on her face, the red was still wet against her cheek in the humidity. Silence fell between them and when it was clear he had no intention of saying more she continued. "I spotted some fresh tracks heading north east of the camp. Probably a raiding party or a patrol that weren't there when we hit. If you move quickly, you could probably catch them at the bridge upstream,"

The words brought a surge of warmth to his chest and he gave her a wide smile before he was able to pick apart the meaning in her words.

"You won't be joining," he said as a statement, rather than a question.

"I'm heading toward Sunfall,"

" _Toward,_ not to?," he asked. It was not a place he would recommend to travellers.

Nil had avoided the Carja cities as much as possible since he walked a free man from Sunstone prison. He kept clear of both Sun Carja and Shadow Carja alike. Too many on both sides would recognize him, he knew. His story and face were unfortunately infamous.

This would be a trek she would take where he would not be able to follow.

"Maybe," she huffed a tired laugh.

"We'll meet again. At the _next_ camp," Nil said with a grin.

"I'm glad one of us is confident about something," she said and he saw the nervousness in her then. The woman knew how dangerous Sunfall was, but that was where her path was leading and she would follow it. Even if an early grave in the desert were it's culmination.

"I know that Carja Kestrels are woefully ill-equipped to fight Stalkers," he said softly, mouth pulling at the corners.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a spectacularly strange sensation; crawling through the tall grass, seeing his light tracks crumpling the foliage and feeling a burst of excitement - a thrill knowing that Nil was nearby and waiting for her to join him. The soft Carja footsteps she would recognize in the dark under a clouded sky and on dry, hard earth. A presence that always brought her a relief; something definitely at odds with what he would proclaim to be his ferocious, loathsome nature. To Aloy, it felt like she could let out a breath with him nearby. That for this fight at least, she wasn't entirely alone. She knew enough about the somewhat off-putting Nil, to recognize that he wouldn't put an arrow in her back if she turned it to him. And she'd seen him fight. He was as skilled as they came beyond the Embrace.

This would be the third bandit camp she'd crossed paths with him. The steps were fresh - shallow and cautious and she found her mind unfocused as she tried counting the sentries. One. Two. Three. Four. A flash of colour that could have been imagined and Aloy blinked frustratingly. Wishing that Nil would now just show himself so she wasn't quite so distracted. One of these days he was going to get himself shot full of arrows and Aloy had a distinct fear they'd be hers.

"They've doubled the sentries today. Pulled in several small clusters of scum from nearby. Your work close to the border has gotten us noticed. We're _expected_ ," he droned as his breath brushed her earlobe and she bit her lip and clenched her eyes wondering when he'd developed the skill required to sneak up on _her_ so well.

The sudden voice at her ear had startled Aloy, but she didn't move, nothing more than to flick her eyes to the right and see him hunched beside her. His armour clean and white - that somewhat ridiculous headdress. She'd cleared out a fledgling bandit town a weeks walk from this one. A town abandoned to war, machines and general superstition. The infrastructure staring to crawl with them like woodlice. Obviously the news had made it this far already. She snorted at Nil.

"I'm sorry, are you _complaining_ about the increased numbers of bandits?"

He smiled a toothy grin, tilting his head to stare passed her into the camp, her only answer to that question.

"High, low or straight through the middle?" Aloy asked, only to laugh. "Actually, _don't_ answer that,"

"I believe you might know me a little too well," he said playfully but that light amusement never reached his eyes. The sun was fading and his pupils had begun to grow in the dim - Aloy had long since grown used to just how terrifying he could look.

And she already knew that he would take out the most obvious sentries and slice a path straight in through their belly, happy and confident in her ability to take down the guards in their towers - content to race forward knowing there was no one on the walls waiting to put an arrow in his back. Aloy would go low and he would go charging in. The tactic worked most of the time. He was a great distraction she begrudgingly could admit to herself. No one saw her arrows or the point of her spear as they frenzied to take Nil on. Some of the Tenakth were normally so enthusiastic about facing those short knives of his they'd run themselves into the end of her spear without ever looking at her at all. Eyes widening in confusion and panic as they found themselves speared like fish.

This time was going to be different though. She could already tell that there was something new here. The numbers were double what she was used to seeing in a camp this size. They'd set up a second alarm fifty feet from the first and there were two guard posted there. Aloy suspected that should they attack, the only places those gaurds would be running to, would be to alert the others.

She scanned the camp again, gauging numbers and trying to work out the angle she was obviously missing.

Nil was eager - she could tell. Only the All-Mother knew how long he'd been here already. Maybe waiting to see if she turned up - maybe waiting to see if this camp could squeeze in any more degenerates without bursting at the seams. It was impossible to tell, and she wasn't sure she wanted the answers he'd give her. But still he waited there patiently at her side as her mind spun.

"Something really isn't right here," she whispered to him. It was more than the numbers. More than their level of alert.

Aloy turned to him, hunkered down in the grass and _huffed_. "It's clearly a trap,"

"I _know_! Very exciting," he fired back with a laugh that made her almost sick with nerves.

"You don't by any chance know the nature of this trap?"

"Not a clue,"

Aloy ground her teeth, her curses came out as nothing more than garbled mumbling.

"There's too many to sneak by all of them and we can't afford to have them pin both of us down in one location. I'll take the west side, you take the east," she waited for his nod before adding "We'll meet in the middle then," with a knowing smile.

He said nothing more as he scurried off to the other side of the camp. It was impossible to avoid springing whatever trap waited for them. But spreading out might hopefully mean they wouldn't both step into it at the same time.

By the time they noticed that the wall on the west was unguarded, Aloy had already managed to take five from the west entrance. Under cover of darkness she'd taken them down. Their eyes blinded by the light of their own torches they hadn't seen her creep by until it was already far too late.

But the commotion once the first body was found made her wonder if she could have possibly added more to it before being discovered. Because the clammer that was raised as both alarms were set off made her teeth ache with the noise and the shouts and the screams. The east side of the camp remained worryingly quiet.

Normally they fought through the camps side by side - slew their opponents side by side. But like it had been outside the camp, the quiet, unknowing rattled her more than anything. Could she call it concern? Aloy wasn't sure. She didn't doubt his skill, but Nil was a man chasing death. He could claim it was others that he hunted, but with what he'd told her, she doubted that was everything.

As the bandits began clambering over their own barricades to rush her, a piercing scream echoed from the east and she could see the it in their eyes; that instant they realised that whatever plans they had were about to fall apart. She called Nil repulsive on occasion for his bloodthirsty ways, but Aloy knew what he was talking about. That extra surge of hunger and adrenaline she got seeing their panic - the taste of that delirious fear, heavy in the air. Her entire body hummed with it.

She smiled without even realising she had until the three men that faced her stumbled back a step. One of them dropped his bow and ran for the gate. Aloy didn't bother giving chase, weaponless he was as likely to be picked off by any of the machines roaming outside - drawn in close by the noise. For the one that ran from her, others ran to face her and Aloy did not have any shortage of foes to fight.

She dipped her head to the left at the whistle of an arrow and smiled when her own hit it's mark, shattering the front teeth of the woman shooting at her. The corpse toppled forward, the tip of her arrow peeking out through a mess of hair at the back. Instant and less painful than she'd probably deserved, but Aloy knew that this bloody work was not something she could bring feeling or doubts into. They were dead. It was not her right to deliver a punishment worse than that.

Nil was right about death. It was the opposite of pain. Pain was for the living.

As their numbers thinned, Aloy began to quicken her steps. She'd had no choice but to let the fleeing bandits go in the midst of the fight, but they were less now and every one she let escape here was only another she'd likely face later. Life wasn't all about those second chances, either. She was noticeable, and a vengeful bandit fleeing here would happily put a blade in her back at the next market if they thought they would get away with it.

Movement skittered at the corner of her eye and Aloy turned, taking off at a run, tapping her focus as she went. The blurry yellow figure that had been ducking in the grass was now racing toward the center of the camp at speed. Aloy tried to reason with herself. Tell herself that he might be going to killed hostages or running for a weapon but in truth she knew she'd already let too many of them flee and it wouldn't sit well with her if she let them go.

"WAIT!!"

The warning rang two steps too late and Aloy knew the instant the bandit leapt to the left that she'd just sprung a trap. In slow motion she watched Nil's eyes widen on the other side of the clearing as the ground beneath her feet rumbled and gave way and she was falling. She hit the bottom of the pit on her back; her armour taking the brunt of it, shattering the wooden spikes, but still, pain lanced straight through her side and when she glanced down a long splinter was jutting straight out, just above her hip.

The injury was agony, but what really made her grit her teeth was the rage she felt. The bandit who'd led her into the trap made a fatal error of peeking over the edge of the hole and Aloy rewarded him by putting an arrow through his eye for the audacity. Echoing his dying gurgle with a cry of anger and a string of curses.

Nausea hit her suddenly and she knew she was likely on the edge of shock.

"Don't move!"

Nil's voice called out and she watched a rope drop down the side of the hole.

Aloy scoffed. Already the dry earth under her was growing soggy and it had been a dry week - it wasn't rain leaking out from beneath her.

He slithered down between the spikes and kicked out, breaking the shafts to clear some more space. Aloy spotted the dark stain on his thigh. The leg now bandaged with his scarf.

"Any left?" she asked. Her voice came out a broken, shaky, parched croak. Nil's eyes met hers as he swallowed a pained laugh.

"You stole the last one - " he smiled down at her. "- even from all the way down here."

Was that appreciation in his voice, she couldn't quite tell. He was still so much of a mystery. He called himself a killer, and maybe he was right but she knew he wasn't a heartless one.

" _Marvelous_ ," she said with weak groan as Nil prodded the area around the wound.

"You might yet live," he said reaching under her in the ground now softened with her blood, and digging around for the root.

Aloy felt it move as it came loose in the ground and suddenly Nil was pulling her to her feet. He spoke to her but all she could hear was a buzzing in her skull.

At some point soon after Aloy realized she must have lost consciousness because she didn't remember how Nil managed to get her and himself out of that hole.

When she woke, she was face down on a bedroll and there was a fire burning at her cheek. Her armour had been removed and with her fingertips she could feel the strips of bandage wrapped around her waist. Mercifully her shirt had simply been pushed up and not cut off.

Across the burning wood Nil sat against the base of a tree. One knee bent and the other stretched out, matching bandages wrapped around his thigh.

"You fell in a hole, too?" Aloy asked him somewhat jovially considering the pain she was in.

"I fell in a hole," he repeated with a scowl.

"Was I out long?"

"A day and a half," he said matteroffactly. "You lost a lot of blood. I wasn't sure you'd wake at all,"

He could have left her there, but he hadn't. She honestly didn't understand why.

Aloy put her palms against the earth and with a gutteral cry pushed herself up onto her knees. She felt the pulling of stitches on her stomach and back and the urge to vomit the non-existent contents of her stomach. Breathing hurt, she idly discovered.

Rising to her knees she met his eyes. Dark tired circles warring with what was left of the faded kohl beneath his. It didn't look like he'd slept.

"Thank you," Aloy said, hand pressed against her abdomen.

"There was too much life left in you to leave you there like spoiled meat," he gave her an easy grin. Light was peaking over the trees. It was almost dawn. "Cut short our fun," he said with a nonchalant flourish of the hand.

A sharp stab of pain lanced through her and it was something darker that Aloy felt. Fun sounded too childish a feeling for what this was.

"Three fled while I was distracted," she said instead, earning a cocked eyebrow from Nil who leaned forward, shifting his weight from the tree. Something new shone in his eyes. Something soft and deeply sinister.

"Oh, they didn't get as far as they'd hoped. Seems all beasts clamber to do your will," his stare made heat flare along her skin. "Even the unbroken ones,"


	3. Chapter 3

It had been raining heavily for the week they'd spent travelling to the camp, but Nil noticed that it was more than just the weight of water that seemed to drag her spirits down into the mud.

He'd found her in Carja armour moving with purpose along the road in the ruins to the north of her homeland. When he'd asked what had taken her back across the border with Carja, she'd simply said 'bandits' and Nil knew then that until she found her quarry his place was at her side.

To Nil's unwelcome surprise, when she'd casually said 'bandits', what ths Nora had actually meant was Shadow Carja. He was always careful to distinguish. It was a fine line he walked himself and these things were always those that made the difference.

He knew the instant they found the camp that something was wrong - something had changed. As she'd marched straight in through the main gate, barely sparing the sentries a second look as she put two arrows in their throats. But the first soldier that rushed her Nil watched her dip beneath his swing and put a small blade in his gut - stab him so deeply his stomach seemed to swallow her clenched fist in blood and a gutteral cry of rage as she _twisted_ it there. When she pulled it free it seemed she took half his insides with her.

Nil was so stunned he almost didn't notice the sword that swung for him. Tipping his head to the side as the edge sheared off several feathers over his right ear. Something trickled down his earlobe and Nil knew it wasn't rain.

He didn't afford her much thought for several minutes after as he felled those that took one look at her and decided he was a safer target. A dark emptiness reaching out to swallow him as he avoided their faces, the knowledge that he might recognize some of them stinging him like a thorn. Nil reminded himself he didn't care. But what he did care about what that she'd lied to him. She'd said they were bandits and like a trusting fool, Nil had taken her at her word because he'd never known her to lie. Honestly, truthfully, he wouldn't have been interested in following if he'd known it was actually Shadow Carja that she was hunting. In the pit of his stomach rage roiled and swelled; the knowledge that she may have tricked him into helping her with this.

He wasn't smiling when he finally caught up to her at the doors to a large hut. At her feet, a man in Carja - _not_ shadow Carja uniform was on his knees and to Nil's horror, he was pleading with her for his life. A swallow cut seeped at his throat as she stood over him, head low, her face cast in shadow. The rain was beating heavier now and Nil blinked several large drops out of his eyes, she'd said something to the soldier but he'd missed it over the sound of the rain hammering against the plates on his shoulder.

"RUN!" she finally screamed down at the man and he stood, hand clutching the shallow wound on his neck as he ran toward the gate. He made it about twenty paces when she put an arrow in his right calf and he fell with a pained cry. She waited patiently as he clambered back up to his feet and stumbled another step. He made it two more before another arrow joined the same leg in the back of his thigh and he toppled into the.mud again. The huntress was using him as target practice. Nil could only attribute fear to the strength the man summoned to get to his feet again but she wasn't done. Not in the least. Finished with that leg, she landed an arrow in his shoulder before beginning anew with the calf on his uninjured leg.

"Stop this," Nil found himself saying at her target fell and began his slow crawl away. He didn't like this. He didn't like any of this. He'd seen worse - _done_ worse, but this wasn't her. _Clean kill_ , that was her way. He'd never once seen her angry. Not so much as a flicker. At her hands you died a warriors death. Emotionless and quiet. An honorable end. To die at her hands was a privilege he'd have never afforded them. A privilege he would only hope he were one day fortunate to have.

This twisted something in him. Seeing her like this made something more inside him break; it crumpled at the sight.

She walked slowly to the man still weakly clawing at the mud and put a foot in the middle of his back to hold him still.

The begging and sobbing continued pitifully all the way up to the point that the last arrow slid into the back of his skull.

She reached down and pulled off both his vambraces and Nil could see that strangely there were dozens of strips of fabric tied beneath them. All cleanly cut in a variety of colours and patterns. Some were expensive silk, others cheaper linens or leather. All different. She cut them from his arm, not caring that her blade sliced straight through his flesh. Nil watched her carefully examine the pieces, cradling them in her palm a moment before turning away.

Her eyes flickered to the hut and she paused midstep, squeezing her eyes shut and biting down before continuing. His gaze turned in curiosity to the open door and he took a step toward it.

"Don't," was all she said, whispered brokenly as she turned away from him.

"These weren't the bandits you made them out to be," he said plainly, his voice laden with unsaid accusation. She knew his feelings on anything that seemed political. Nil had no intention of involving himself in any Sun throne affairs. It complicated what should have been a simple affair.

"Why? Because you say they aren't? Because they're dressed like soldiets?" she snarled at him. She hadn't bothered to retrieve any of the arrows she'd spent here. The huntress left them in the corpses, and left the bodies where they'd fallen. Food for the maggots and birds.

"Soldiers do what they're..."

"Shut up!" she barked at him, clenching her eyes tightly. "You can tell yourself whatever lies you want, but I'm not interested in hearing them."

He felt that bubble of anger swelling inside himself again and he grimaced.

"I _never_ lied, girl."

"Then you're delusional," she spat. "Evil people are still evil regardless of the clothes they wear. I'm not interested in words, or your arbitrary distinctions," she stuffed the scraps of cloth away as lightning began to streak across the sky and thunder beat like a great drum overhead. "I'm sick of them. I'm sick of hearing one thing and watching another happen. I'm tired of it all. Double meanings and _boarshit_ ," her eyes locked with his. "They should have been there to protect these people...not..." her words faltered and Nil could see the instant she gave up on fetching them.

He watched her leave before approaching the hut and finally glancing inside.

The air rushed sharply into his lungs through clenched teeth as he felt the disquiet in his stomach turn to outright nausea at the sight. The bodies piled high, dozens stacked upon each other - the bodies of children. _Five, six, eight_. Too small, too innocent to have ever been valuable as slaves. Too young to hold a sword and fight in the sun-ring. He didn't examine them any closer, knowing the types of injuries he would likely find. Their clothes cut and torn. Their pale hollow faces - the wide open eyes of terror.

And the scraps of fabric tied beneath the soldiers vambrace made a terrible sense to him finally. The trophies from the dead. A practice he hated made all the more revolting. His huntress's disturbing, violent rage had been even too merciful it seemed. Nil didn't believe in the gods, but if there was something beyond this world, he hoped desperately that it gave them all that they deserved.

And her words began to make sense to him; if this was what the Shadow Carja were, then she was right. The only difference between them and the bandits he hunted were a meaningless emblem.

After nearly a week, the rain was finally letting up as he exited the camp, following her weary footsteps. Nil found her crying openly in the grass on her knees. She'd dug a small hole in the earth and was in the process of burying the trophies she'd stripped from her last kill.

"You looked?" she finally asked him.

"Of course, I was curious,"

"Was it familiar?" she growled out and a thousand dread inducing Images cut straight through him. "Is that what Carja soldiers do to children?" her mouth was a sneer.

Nil bit his tongue and crouched down beside her. Not close enough that they touched but enough to feel the heat burning off her. The most comfort he knew how to give her in this moment.

"No," he whispered.

"One of the Carja in Daytower told me about this place before he died," she continued absently. "Told me he'd had to cut ties with the contacts here when the _products_ turned out to be too young, too _sour_ to be sold," She looked over at him, her jaw clenching and unclenching in rage.

"Do you know what happens to slaves that can't be sold?"she asked pitiably and despite himself Nil finally put a cautious arm across her shoulders, almost jerking away when she let her head fall against his arm.

"I took slaves as ordered, and I raided villages. I did _many_ questionable things, and I'll admit I had few sleepless nights over it, but I never _butchered_ \- I never _-_ not to _children_ ," he finally said. "You were right. A camp of bandits in better armour is still a camp of bandits,""

Nil filled in the remainder of the tiny grave she'd made with a palm full of wet earth, took one of her hands and gently pressed down on top letting his linger there with hers for a moment longer. A strange solidarity for her grief. He stood wordlessly, leaving her to her thoughts and headed back to see if there was enough blaze in the camp to burn the hut and as the fire roared consuming all those horrors, he saw the flickering of firelight in the distance where she'd made her own camp for the night.

Under normal circumstances, their hunt finished, Nil would have left for the next bandit trail but with heat at his back, something new pulled him forward.

He found her seated by the fire, a spit of boar roasting slowly over the flames.

"Thank you,"

"No need to, I go where the blood flows, girl."

"That wasn't what I was thanking you for," she said honestly. "Have you always had the compulsion to turn regular conversation into talk about death?"

He sucked in a breath and scoffed. She was so at odds with the killer he saw every time she notched an arrow in her bow.

"I would have walked right by this place," he admitted. "But this was work that needed doing."

She cut a chunk of meat from the flank of the boar, wrapped it in a waxen leaf and tossed it to him.

"To doing what needs to be done."


	4. Chapter 4

He'd wanted to die. Aloy had no other explanation for it. He knew he couldn't win. Maybe he'd hoped. Fantasized even. Some tiny spark in himself that envisioned himself the victor in this fight. But they'd hunted and fought side by side enough to know that she was just that little bit faster; that little bit stronger. She was accustomed to deflecting metal gears and steel limbs. Her spear arm pierced ravenger armour. Aloy would never have been rude enough to say it directly, but Nil limiting himself to enemies of flesh and blood did him no service in the end.

The fight was intense atop the mesa. His arrows were quick, his blades were sharp, but Aloy had too much at stake to die. The fledgeling world was teetering on the verge of a second extinction and she'd the express misfortune of literally being born to save it.

As she knew he would, Nil fell, an arrow in his shoulder and a darkening bruise across his jaw as he found himself pinned beneath the tip of her spear; a drop of blood springing beneath the point.

"This death is yours, you should savour it," he said with a weak laugh. He didn't look to be disappointed in losing. If anything, Aloy saw a peculiar relief in his gaze. 

"It was never your _death_ I want," she said between clenched teeth and heavy breaths. "I want your your bow - your knives. There's an _army_ coming. An army of machines and murderers that I have no chance of defeating right now and killing you here would be _meaningless_ in the end," she said. They would all die anyway, if Hades won.

He laughed, genuinely laughed at her and Aloy thought he might actually be mad with the look of mirth in his silver eyes.

"So instead of dying here, you want me to die _there_?"

"More or less," she muttered. "At the moment our odds might be impossible," she locked eyes with him, unable to conceal the desperation in them. "I _need_ you there," she admitted softly, crouching down to check the arrow in his shoulder. The fight was done. She'd won and he'd lost. "This should heal quickly," Aloy said prodding the wound.

"Very well, if there's a war coming I suppose it would be a waste to die here and miss it," he replied breathlessly, wincing as she stretched the skin around his shoulder.

She held out her hand to him and Nil paused a moment before reaching up and taking it, letting her pull him to his feet. He winced visibly with the pain.

"Hm, I genuinely thought I had a chance," he smiled, his lips bloody and Aloy couldn't keep the grin off her face.

"That's cause you're a fool. I never had the option of failing... definitely not here anyway."

The mark on his face was swelling, angry and purple Aloy could feel a few of them herself welling up beneath her armour. The back of her neck ached something fierce from an awkward landing against the rocks. She was tired. So _very_ tired.

" _Sit_ ," she pointed to the log by the cold fire and pulled out a narrow blade. Her tone broaching no argument.

"Will you be as gentle taking it out as you were putting it in?" he purred to her and Aloy shook her head momentarily bemused. They'd fought to the death and he seemed not to be unbalanced by that.

"Probably not," she said with a short bark of laughter.

Nil did as she told him and took a seat as she began carefully cutting the arrow free. It had been a half power shot and she was right at a glance, the wound would heal well enough. She cleaned and stitched it and when she was done applying salve she stood feeling moist heat rolling down between her shoulder blades and an intense sharp pain as injured muscle made themselves known. He smirked at her, holding out his palm for the sewing kit and salve. Knowing she was hurt at a mere glance. Aloy frowned down at him.

"Well, this brings back memories," she found herself grumbling furiously as they traded places and he examined her. He was gentle at he moved her armour and pulled her leather collar back. She'd forgotten that was one of his many contradictions. It was hard to remember that beneath all his off-putting talk about loving murder and violence and Nil's now very obvious death wish, his stitches to her stomach and back had been the neatest - the _cleanest_ she'd ever seen. Better than her own or any healer she knew. For a man so apparently invested in murder, he was plenty experienced in keeping people alive and with minimal pain.

"Scratches, bruising. The rock kissed you. Too shallow for stitching," he tsked and Aloy felt the cooling sting of the salve as he smeared it across the abrasion. He pressed a thumb into the muscle and after a momentary stab of pain it unclenched and she let out a breath.

"You missed your calling as a healer,"

Aloy felt his hands still as he quickly stood away from her. The air suddenly souring between them and she sensed that she'd likely said the wrong thing. Whatever that happened to be. Instead of pressing it, or apologizing, Aloy turned and piled some wood into the fire. In their condition, neither would be making making the climb down tonight.

"Tell me more about this destiny of yours that it would keep you from the end of my blade," he finally asked her and Aloy took a comfortable seat opposite the fire.

"I wasn't exactly born. Rather built by machines..."

"To fight machines..." he finished for her, something like understanding suddenly dawning on his face. "....there is a poetry in that," he smirked over the fire.

Aloy felt the warm breath of relief wash through her. She'd been expecting him to shun her - shun her like the Nora she realized. "I was very foolish then," Nil continued instead. "What chance does a kestrel stand against a stalker?" He spread his hands in open question. Repeating the comparison he'd made so long ago.

"Were you _really_ a kestrel?" Aloy asked him. She'd fought some of Sunfall's guard. They were vicious and brutal and there was not a scrap of honesty or honor in them. If someone told her they recruited them straight from the darkest cells in Sunstone, she'd have believed them.

Nil clicked his tongue.

"Very almost," he admitted. "But my place was on the battlefield; kestrels keep to their perches. Happy to grow old and fat in a too small cage."

Cages. She knew all too well about those.

"Avad asked me to rule with him," Aloy suddenly admitted. Hearing the words out loud made her stomach twist. It still felt like something that happened to someone else. She had no idea why she felt the need to mention it to him. Perhaps because Nil, unlike Erend or anyone else she'd befriended in Carja had absolutely zero stake in the matter. He had no interest in what her decision would be.

"You turned him down?" Nil asked with cold curiosity.

"A cage of gold is still a cage," she waved her hand dismissively. "He had no interest in _me_ , not really." It was not her he wanted. No matter how many advisors now told him that she was promised by the sun, or destined or foretold, or whatever other nonsense he let himself listen to. Avad was suffering a broken heart. And a hundred of her would not balm that kind of pain.

Nil looked at her quizzically and she recoiled under the intensity of the stare.

"Another fool, then," he whispered plainly as a surge of heat crept across her cheeks, before standing and dragging a bedroll closer to the fire. He sighed sleepily as he lay down on it, careful not to jostle his shoulder.

"I'll dream happily of our next battle," he said, closing his eyes with an altogether innocent smile.

"If more scars are what you're after," she muttered under her breath with a grin, knowing he likely watched her under a heavy lid.

When Aloy woke with the dawn, Nil was already gone. His weapons and bedroll missing. Only his footsteps in the dust remained; tracks leading to the edge of the mesa and what was assuredly a long, painful climb down.

She stayed a while longer, watching the sun rise high in the sky, idly wondering if this would be the last time she'd see him, but throughout her travels Nil had almost always been there. Even when she was alone she got the impression that he was never truly far. Stalking her like a shadow.

She thought about the battle ahead, the King's call for aid and who might come to face the threat. This would be the end of Hades, or the end of their world. There was now no other outcome available to them. It would come to the spire, and they would face it and it's horde, and they would win or they would lose. There was a simplicity in that that Aloy could appreciate. No more lies, no more betrayals. As terrible - as terrifying as the prospect of this war was, it was a concept she could at least understand.

The world of politics was complex and Aloy did not enjoy the uncertainty of it. As much as she told him otherwise, there were some truths in some of Nil's beliefs.


	5. Chapter 5

Her name was Aloy. To think they'd gone all this time and he'd never known. The sound of it was on repeat in his head. Replaying over and over. The memory of her barrelling through smoke and fire toward her destiny speared him deeper than any man or machine in that battle. A battle like no other. The greatest he'd ever fought in. Machines he'd never seen - blood, flames. So much death. He'd almost missed it over a stupid duel.

But no matter the glory, Nil realized that it wasn't where he belonged. He'd thought he did. The arrow between skin and armour, he'd told her. But he was discovering just how much of a fool he'd really been. Killing bandits was enjoyable _because_ they were bandits. The right thing for the wrong reasons. But _still_ the right thing. And his reasons after all this time were suddenly less transparent. Was it truly possible that after so many years fighting - of killing, that Nil had actually become a good man and was simply _playing_ the role of a monster now. Maybe she was right to call him delusional. He should have been up at the spire in the thick of the battle but he'd stayed to help the people in the maize-land below.

But what amazed him most was just how much satisfaction he got from it. At the start of his partnership with Aloy, they'd played at trading kindnesses. She saved his life, he saved hers, a warm campfire and food shared in pleasant, quiet company. But at some point Nil began to think of her as a friend. Perhaps his only friend. Aloy seemed to see something in him that he didn't see himself. His words - his vile tongue never pushed her away like it did others. Like Nil had partly hoped it would. At the battle there was nothing to trade. These people had nothing to give, and Nil gave everything he had. Initially, he told himself those were the terms she let him live by, but that wasn't true. Nil knew from the look on her face - the sudden light in her eyes at the western gate that she hadn't expected to see him again. She'd spared him, but despite her words, she would never have held him to any obligation to fight here.

The battle was short lived, but those victory cheers had coursed thought his veins like thunder. Nil had little experience being on the winning side of war, he realized. And the Carja he discovered could drink like the Oseram when the mood struck. Men and women tumbled down the streets singing; drunk, uncaring about tomorrow's hangover - simply happy to have a tomorrow. But not Aloy. An invitation to the Palace feast had been extended to him in thanks for his efforts but had no interest in being there either. The prospect of a room full of diplomats and noble politicians talking out both sides of their mouths about subjects they couldn't hope to grasp, was Nil's idea of hell. So instead he wandered the streets, watching others. And that's when he saw her carrying supplies back to a large home on the upper levels near the palace. Aloy was already preparing to leave. There would be no party for her. No celebration. No _rest_.

"Leaving the cage before someone closes you in?"

The front door was open and Nil leaned against the door frame as she rolled cloth and counted supplies. Despite what would have been a soft bed upstairs he could see her bedroll laid out now on the floor. She would be leaving at dawn he realized.

Shouts echoed from drunken revelers out on the street, mere feet away, and Nil closed over the door behind him to give them both some privacy.

"Something like that," she finally said, looking up. Frowning as she took stock of her medicinal herbs. She was wearing the armour from the battle he realized. A thing of wonder and light capable of deflecting arrows and strikes. Old ones technology. "Me being here will only put more pressure on him,"

"Still looking to make a _savage_ Nora a consort of the Sun-King?"

"If I stay, he knows his rule guaranteed. Things are still so uncertain. I know how attractive that is for him."

"But your place isn't here?" Nil guessed aloud.

"This battle is over but I'm afraid it's not the end. Hades is gone, but something twisted him to begin with. I've seen it with others too. Another old consciousness in the north called Hephaestus. And Sylens...."she pouted, sighing and looking up to the ceiling, exasperated. "He's _going_ to betray me...or he already has. I haven't decided yet. Either way, he's dangerous. And I still have Gaia to bring back."

She gave him a tired smile. "They should enjoy their victory here. But _I_ can't...I'm not done." Finally she looked up at him quizzically. "Why are you here, Nil? I expected you to leave after the fighting ended."

"I came to see you, of course," he said as though it were obvious.

"I needed your help here, but your life is your own, you don't owe me anything," she said.

"No, no, I fought here by _choice_. We both know that,"

Aloy had finally packed the last of her supplies and stood to face him. Almost a full day after the fight had ended and her body still couldn't quite shake the defensive posture beaten into it. She stood tense and stiff. Spoiling still for a fight. Nil reminded himself that for her, it wasn't over. She was right to stay on guard.

"So why are you here?"

"I came to ask to go with you," he said simply.

"You never asked my permission to follow before." Because of course she knew how he'd seek her out when things grew quiet. All those times he would sneak up on her and it had taken him so long to realise she'd know he was there. Every time.

"That _is_ true," Nil said with a smile. "But my eyes have been opened to a broader purpose."

"You enjoyed it, didn't you? Helping people." Something flickered across her face, lighting her eyes.

"I'll admit, there is a certain pleasure in doing the right thing for the _right_ reasons,"

"And what happened to staying out of politics?"

Nil found himself looking toward the palace. Even from here they could hear the music of Avad's festivities.

"Oh, I am. Yours is the most apolitical cause I know of, Aloy," he said and something jolted through him and it took Nil a moment to realise that he'd never actually spoken her name before. The sounds playing on repeat in his head since he'd heard it and this was the first time they'd rolled off his tongue and passed his lips.

"I suppose I could use the allies."

"Girl, you are _surrounded_ by allies,"

"They all want something from me,"

"Am I no different?"

"You are... You're at least upfront about it," she said.

Nil laughed, though his eyes never left the curve of her smile.

"Find me just before dawn at the gates and we'll see what more trouble you manage to wring from this world,"

\---------------------

Nil knew by the sudden searching presence of guards on the street that Aloy's fears had come to pass and Avad had begun to swing close the doors to his golden cage. He was a much beloved King, but like all good people with power he was clearly surrounded by bad advice. Only a fool would council him to this type of madness. But Aloy had become a symbol for his people. A shiny saviour in a time of great darkness. For her to leave would be seen as abandonment, and would shake the stone floor of his court with rumour and malcontent.

But Nil saw that her destiny was bigger than Avad and his throne. Bigger than the Sun-King's crown. It was the fate of the world itself. The grass. The trees. The animals and machines.

Outside he'd seen evidence of it already. Long legs peacefully scratching at the dirt and rocks, they paid people no mind so long as they kept their distance. Once again the wild machines had reverted to the beasts he'd known as a child. Still dangerous. But Aloy had brought back some semblance of balance to the world.

He watched sentries at the gates search carts and pull the shrouds and veils from passing women's faces. Nil knew that Aloy would never be discovered searching the obvious. If they were looking for her now, she was obviously hours already gone.

The rustle of dead and drying grass behind him made Nil suddenly, inexplicably happy.

"I see you managed to slip the cage."

"Barely," her tone was dark and Nil found an eyebrow creeping up.

"Powerful people are predictable. They will always seek to protect that power in the end."

"I...I thought of him as a friend, but it was just more double talk."

"Don't take it to heart, girl. Remember those who came to fight, they didn't come because _Avad_ called for them,"

"I know who came when I needed them," there was something agonizingly tender in the look she gave him with those words and Nil felt a chill run through him despite the rising temperatures of the day.

"So where are you leading us?"

Aloy took the small device from her ear and wrapped it in a piece of cloth, stashing it away safely.

"It's time I pay Sylens a visit."


	6. Chapter 6

Aloy coughed violently from the sudden jarring impact against her ribs, as the realization raced through her - the new knowledge that Sylens had found a way to neutralize her old world armour. That he'd been expecting her. 

"You saved the world. You fullfilled your destiny, Aloy. Why couldn't that be enough for you?"

It was true. She'd done the impossible. She could have gone home. Could have even taken Avad up on any one of his numerous and increasingly desperate offers. Aloy, truthfully could have vanished into the wilderness and if she hadn't wanted to, would have never been seen again. 

But she was here, wasn't she. 

She found her eyes flickering to the machine crackling malevolently on Sylens' workshop bench. Even without her focus, she could feel Hades. Hear the echoes of his voice speaking to her. Laughing at her. Goading her with her failure to destroy him.

"I can't bring back Gaia until Hades is destroyed. I thought at least you'd learned your lesson," she pierced Sylens with her hardest glare. "It isn't a machine you can control. You're a child, playing with dangerous things you will never understand," she chastised.

"I understand more than you could possibly know, Aloy, and with him contained and at my mercy, there is no _limit_ to the knowledge and technology I can bring to the world,"

"You mean for yourself,"

He smirked at her and Aloy knew the look of greed - the lust of power on his face. Sylens genuinely believed he was better than all the others he'd manipulated for his own ends. Actually thought of himself a saviour, leading the primitives out of darkness.

Only partially true as he led them into the flames instead.

"Knowledge has a price, Aloy," he spread his hands wide. "I'm merely honest about paying,"

"Some costs are to high. Some risks are _too_ great. It isn't _you_ that pays for it, Sylens." Aloy hissed with venom.

"Spoken like a _coward_ ," he sneered at her. 

Breathing hurt and Aloy wagered that the blow to her chest had broken ribs. She tasted blood on her lips and desperately hoped it was from a split lip and not something worse. After all, she'd stood there like a fool and taken the hit, so accustomed to her armour absorbing the impact to bother to even dodge. A pierce lung would be no more than she deserved.

She desperately wanted to stand and face him, but Aloy found she couldn't move even if she wanted to.

"How did you know I was coming?" she asked instead.

She'd kept her focus concealed for weeks, just in case he were watching her. Aloy had no doubts that even when he was silent to her questions, he was listening at the other side of the device. Recording everything.

"Eclipse was a large organization, with just as large a network of spies. It wasn't hard. You're fairly recognizable now."

Aloy used the pure, unbridled rage she felt to roll onto her side and make it up onto her elbow. The pain made her sick and dizzy and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't managed to draw in a full breath.

"Then nothing's changed," she wheezed. "Hades still lives, Eclipse still plots and you are here at the core of it all making exactly the same mistakes again."

"No, I'm not."

Slowly he approached her taking his time to pick up the spear that had been knocked far from her reach. Sylens leveled the tip to her chest and Aloy saw a finality in his eyes, looking down at her impassively.

"You are just another machine, Aloy. A machine that has now become obsolete. There are no more doors that I need you to open for me. Your purpose ends here."

Sylens lifted the spear shaft above his head and Aloy waited for the strike that never seemed to fall. Instead his entire body jolted, his eyes no longer looking at her but fixed straight ahead into the nothing - his jaw falling slack.

"Oh, there is a _world_ of new purpose, just _waiting_ to be found," And Aloy let out a torturous breath as she watched Nil appear from behind, and purr into Sylens' ear. His toothy grin looking even more deranged than normal; his headdress was missing and his face was bloody. From Sylens back Nil pulled a long jagged blade out- the knife he'd twisted in under his ribs. Killed like a bandit. An unclean death as the hunter himself would say.

He let Sylens body fall and stepped around to crouch by Aloy's side. There were two deep cuts oozing on his cheek and forehead that she could see. The source of all that red smeared across his nose and cheeks. They would need stitches but Aloy wasn't sure she could even stand to walk - could barely breathe, forget about stitching up his wounds.

Nil ran a soft palm over her ribs and down the middle of her chest and Aloy inhaled sharply, agony lancing her.

"Possibly broken. I'll need a better look to see if anything is out of place," he smiled and she knew it was because he'd been telling her for weeks not to get to attached to the old world armour and here they were, so soon into the fight and it had already betrayed her.

"So that's what that sound was?" She found herself joking. Her breathing was painful but clear. Nothing _seemed_ punctured. Not yet anyway. It didn't seem life threatening.

Without prompting Nil helped her up onto her feet and Aloy couldn't contain the shriek as white hot pain cut through her and she almost slipped to the ground, clutching onto his vest as her legs threatened to give way beneath the disorientating weight. But Nil held her firm by the waist, trying to be as careful as he could as he walked with her. Aloy's eyes fell to Sylens' still form before her gaze crawled back up to the device she now knew for certain held what was left of Hades. A part of her wanted to take it from the work bench and smash it, but that it survived at all meant that the master override hadn't fully worked. Aloy could no longer be certain that simply destroying the vessel would suffice. All she'd likely do was free him. Leaving him contained for the time being would need to be enough. She didn't have have any other choice but to bring Gaia back and hope she had the answer to ridding the world of it once and for all. Hope she could bring all the other AI back into line.

"Come, I spied a fire on my way in. These will need to be checked in better light,"

She walked with great difficulty but Aloy knew that with injuries to the chest and ribs, she needed to be up and moving. Trying to breathe deeply. Fighting against the pain. If she lay down now, the chances of getting back up on her own were slim.

Nil sat her on a chair in what appeared to be Sylens living space. The fire had likely been lit that morning but had already begun to die and Nil threw some more wood in, feeding the flames and rubbing his hands against the chill.

"I'll need to take this off," he tugged at the edge of her armour with a cheeky smirk and she found herself mumbling 'heap of junk' under her breath and through clenched teeth. As he worked the knots and buckles free and began removing the leathers and skins Aloy found herself suddenly shivering in her undershirt. He moved her seat closer to the fire where he carefully lifted her arms up and knelt at her side.

"Bruised, but not broken," he brushed his knuckles along the skin and the shiver that Aloy felt she couldn't entirely put down to the mountain cold. He pulled her shirt back down and set a length of furs over her shoulders.

"I'd congratulate myself if it didn't hurt so much," she grumbled.

"Not everyone lives to learn from their mistakes,"

"Yes, thank you," she smiled....and stilled when he reached out and touched her cheek. "Another mark?" she asked but he didn't answer her, sighing only before stepping away.

He left her by the fire and from the noise of scraping and dragging Aloy guessed that Nil was disposing of Sylens' body.

Aloy sat chewing some of the remaining herbs from her pouch and breathing eased as the pain lessoned.

Her cheek burned where his fingertips had brushed the skin and as she examined it herself, she could find no swelling or bruise and a slow smile pulled at her mouth as heat flushed her once more. Aloy had never believed he was a heartless killer. She could tell any stranger she met she was a brutal remorseless killer but it didn't make it true. Separate the man and his deeds from the stories he told about himself and Aloy saw a man who'd participated and seen all manner of horrors in war, had surrendered himself for punishment and had spent the years since his release punishing those who prey on the most vulnerable. Not caring about borders or politics. If it was simply death and bloodshed he were after, she knew he wouldn't care who ended up on the point of his arrow. It was a big world and there were plenty of people to kill if it was simply repercussions he sought to avoid. No, Nil had chased an honorable death. First by fighting those that preyed on the innocent, and when they ran thin, by challenging her to a fight - a fight Aloy suspected he already knew he'd lose.

And then there was this new thing that Aloy didn't quite recognize. The glances and the soft touches. The heat burning in her alongside the fear. Because Nil was much like her - a creature in the wind - and Aloy was suddenly afraid to wake up and one day find him having blown away. She no longer wanted to be alone on this journey.

When he returned two hours later, he brought with him a cleaned, plucked turkey. Aloy preferred the gamey, fatty texture of boar but she salivated as he speared it by the fire and her nose was filled with the most amazing smell.

But Nil was still bleeding from the wound on his head, not that he seemed to pay it much attention and Aloy was now feeling strong enough to help him.

"You need stitches,"

"There you go, robbing me of my scars. My only trophies," he said somewhat somberly and Aloy recognized it for his way of joking. It was hard to tell sometimes, she could admit, but there was a telltale crease around his eyes that she could identify as the laughter he hadn't chosen to release, building up in his face.

"You can complain later when you aren't bleeding all over yourself and our food," she admonished lightly.

He did as she asked and fetched her her sewing kit and medicinal pouch, Aloy turned her chair from the fire and Nil kneeled at her feet.

"You lose your headdress?" she asked him, absently noting it had yet to make an appearance again. The last she'd seen of it, it had been on his head as he cleared a path for her from the plateau. How snapmaws had found their way so far up the mountain, Aloy couldn't imagine. They weren't necessarily good climbers.

"The jaws of a large, hatefully unfamiliar metal beast, but... it did its job and my head yet remains fixed to my shoulders," he brushed off the memory with a sigh only to wince as Aloy dabbed the wound with spirits, cleaning away the blood.

"There's quite a few of those appearing," she locked eyes with him. "Unfamiliar beasts," she elaborated and Nil nodded ever so slightly.

Aloy placed the stitches as neatly as she could, she'd learned some new techniques watching the way Nil tied them but hers still weren't nearly as straight.

"Were you a healer for long?" she asked him and only took a little pleasure in the way he stiffened before huffing in displeasure.

"I was trained in stitches and fevers and broken bones until I was fifteen, then war broke out and it didn't matter what I was. Then - then I was a soldier," he recounted.

"Don't worry about me stealing your scars away, I'm not good enough with a needle to do that," Aloy chuckled, wincing when she forgot about her ribs and the motion made her breath hitch.

She saw the way his hand twitched, as though his fingers itched to take the needle from her but he simply angled his face closer to her hands and allowed her to continue. As Aloy applied ointment to the wounds she touched his cheek as he had done her and left it there a long, breathless, boneless moment. Long enough for Nil to waiver. They were close to the flames but she swore she saw his cheeks redden even more.

"Warrior, killer, healer, poet...quite the list," Aloy said as she pulled back her fingers but something had changed - had charged in the space between them and as she pulled away he caught her fingers in his, holding them just a few inches from his face. Close enough to still feel the heat from her hands.

Compelled by forces unseen - green fixed on silver eyes, Aloy dipped her head and pressed her lips against his. A fluttering pressure only. The brush of the wind. He didn't move. Didn't so much as twitch as she kissed him. The only sign that he still lived was his warm breath washing over her as she pulled back.

"I'm sorry," she muttered shaking her head but a hand wove it's way around the back of her head and Nil sat up, returning the gesture with a need that made her feel rubbery and weak.

Aloy suddenly didn't know what to do with her hands and set her palms on his shoulders for balance. There was a hunger she realized in herself for whatever this was. A need for closeness. For connection that she'd been missing. She slipped forward, slowly melting against him until she felt herself slide from her seat and land on her knees, a hacking, brutal pain crying up through her chest with the impact. Immediately he pulled back away from her and when Aloy looked up, she could see that he was breathing a little heavier than normal. His face was impassive. She tried to make it to her feet. Ever the hunter, Aloy felt the urge to give chase but her injured ribs pulled her back down to the earth. A strangled laugh tore it's way passed her lips but darkness followed it.

\-------------------

Nil caught her before her head hit the ground. Cradling her carefully as her face tipped into the crook of his neck, her breathing soft against his thoat, still kneeling there on the cold stone - limp and unmoving. He picked her up as gently as he could and carried her to her bedroll, covering her with furs. She would need to move and walk and remain as active as possible while her ribs healed, but for the moment she needed the rest. He needed rest. He slipped the head piece from her brow and moved the stray hairs and disheveled braids out of her eyes and moving his own bedroll next to hers, he lay down on his side, watching her chest rise in tense, shallow breaths. Part of Nil told him to get up and leave. To get as far from Aloy as he possibly could and never look back. But strangely, that part of him was also the part that felt the most anguish, the most pain and internal confliction at the urge. If he left her now it would leave him with such a wound as to never fully heal. Till the day he stepped into the cross hairs of his own death, Nil knew he would regret it.

Whatever happened here, as confusing and strange as it had been, Nil was resolved to see it to it's conclusion. He owed her. He owed _himself_ that much at least.

Aloy slept for almost an entire day but when she woke, Nil was comforted to see her standing unassisted and taking ginger steps as she moved about the cave, examining Sylens workshop. She ate enough turkey for two full grown men and Nil was pleased to see that pain hadn't robbed her of her appetite.

They didn't speak about the kiss they'd shared and he was happy about that fact for the time being at least. They were exhausted and there was too much confusion around it.

"He used Eclipse spies to keep an eye on us," Aloy said between chews of turkey.

Nil frowned. Eclipse, Shadow Carja, bandits. They were all the same now, weren't they. The banners they operated under were nothing more than a veil for slavery and brutality and murder. A thin cover for their filthy lifestyles.

"I expect he likely gave them focuses so he could keep an eye on them as well. If I can learn a little more about how he controls the network, I might be able to find them," she purred to him. And Nil sucked in a delighted breath.

"And just when I think there are no more hunts to be had..."

"The truth is that there are more bandits in the world than we'll ever be able to hunt down. Not even in two lifetimes. But if they won't come to us, we'll go to them."

Nil could admit that the resolution in her voice quickened his blood ever so slightly. For a fleeting moment, he thought of nothing more than those lips of hers. Hot and soft and pressed firmly against his own. And it was thrilling. Swallowing him whole in a way that the hunt never had.


	7. Chapter 7

Her ribs had healed enough for climbing but Aloy felt the tender spots occasionally enough while she exercised to give her pause. While she recovered she found plenty of time to pour over Sylens work; download his database and figure out that she could enable her own focus as a master unit. His workshop had plenty of spares and she considered offering one to Nil, but Aloy knew what his response would be.

He'd gone out hunting every chance he got over the four weeks Aloy had been stuck in the mountain workshop. Sometimes he would be gone for days at a time and come back with game. Other times he would come back empty handed but the smell of blood on his hands - on his skin. The knowledge would have twisted something in Aloy when they first met, before she knew the kind of prey that Nil expressly hunted, but now, she knew better - she knew that the _world_ was a little better - it's people a little safer with him stalking the mountain trails.

Rummaging around in the bottom drawer Aloy grinned finding the wire she needed to complete the small project she'd started in Nil's absence. When he returned, she knew she was well enough to make the climb down, and that they would leaving. Aloy was itching to go if she were honest. She'd never spent so long couped up indoors. Not even growing up in the mountains with Rost. And Aloy longed for the sight of trees and the feel of wind in her hair without the threat of it freezing on her scalp and breaking off.

They hadn't really spoken since they'd kissed. In their own ways, for their own reasons, pretending it hadn't happened. Aloy was deeply embarrassed, and Nil - Nil seemed uncertain. Shaken by the fact that he'd returned such a tender moment with the enthusiasm he had. Aloy's had been something like a question, and now he was living with the knowledge that he'd answered in a way that surprised even him. There was something there, budding between them, and maybe it had always been there but they were both so focused on their own paths they hadn't noticed it. Now that their paths were moving in the same direction it was finally becoming obvious.

_Desire._

The feeling haunting Aloy like a stalker was desire. Rost would definitely _not_ approve. But being an adult now, Aloy realised that it would very likely be for the wrong reasons. She'd already saved the world once; she _definitely_ wasn't a child anymore. She bit her cheek, holding in a laugh at the thought that bubbled up. Technically, Nil might have saved it the second time and Aloy knew well enough not to mention it to him.

Calloused fingers wove in the last of the machine teeth she'd filed to shape to replace the damaged pieces on Nil's headdress, and Aloy set it down in the place where he normally kept his bedroll, satisfied with her work.

But Nil did not return that night. And Aloy went to sleep alone, haunted by dreams she couldn't remember in the light of day but that left her cold and shaken when she woke. Nil didn't return the morning after or the mornings or nights after those. And deep inside Aloy, a voice whispered to her darkly, telling her that he wouldn't be coming back. That he'd taken his time to think about it and that he'd decided that it was time to go his separate way after four months of travel together.

And something tender cracked and bled at that thought. A stinging wound that made her stomach tie itself up in knots. It made her jaw tremble and her eyes wet to think about. A wound, she realized. A wound inside her. Something that she couldn't balm or stitch closed. Red and raw and weeping into her eyes.

The pain was followed by a tidal wave of anger. Her people cast her out. Rost had been ready to abandon her. Aloy had believed at one point that all that she needed to do - all that she could accomplish, she would do it alone. But Aloy hadn't been alone in Meridian. She'd stood with others. They'd won only because she'd faced Hades with allies. Those same allies Sylens would have had her spurn and abandon when they'd needed help.

And now here she was facing it again. Standing on the edge of loneliness once more. Nil was gone, and Aloy wasn't sure if she would ever see him again. Returning to Meridian made and some new political intrigue wasn't on the table either. The chances were the Sun-King could have her arrested and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. It was best she didn't force anyone's hand in that direction.

But her eyes fell to the headdress she'd repaired for him. The hours of work she'd put into it. They'd owed each other nothing when they'd met, but here they stood, and Aloy felt she owed him everything now. She swallowed; Aloy would see him have it. Know that if he truly wished to follow a different path then he could tell that to her face and take the armour with him so she would know at least he carried something of her as protection.

For the first time in nearly five weeks Aloy packed up her things to leave, closing the door behind her and taking the fuse from the locking mechanism so no one else would squat there in her absence. So what was left trapped of Hades would remain so. Sylens' home was a secret nook in the mountains near Gaia Prime, one that had taken her and Nil months to find the entrance to despite it being a scant hundred yards from the workshop Sylens had showed her first. Aloy couldn't quite believe that she'd been so close to his home, but he'd still chosen to appear via hologram. Betraying her was always an option he kept open to him, it seemed.

The trek down was as bitter as the path up, and even after more than a month Aloy felt her ribs ache. Her muscles screamed, the first time in years as she dropped from handhold to handhold and twice before the bottom of the climb she'd had to stop to rest and wait for the muscle cramps to pass.

She found old tracks at the bottom of the trail. Some thick and heavy, others fainter, but she knew Nil's steps. Would know his prints blindfolded in the dark under a moonless sky. With her focus she targeted them and began to give chase. For most of the afternoon she followed them as he wove a path around the mountains. She found bodies. The bodies of bandits. One of the men wore a string of severed fingers as a necklace and he lay were he'd fallen with his throat sliced open, ear to ear. Aloy kept going, but stopped dead in her tracks as she realized Nil had circled toward the path back to her.

He'd been returning.

But he _hadn't_ returned.

And the truth snapped at her like a viper. Her feet barely touched earth as she raced along his trail before losing it at the stream a mile down from the bridge. She scanned his last steps and picked up the remnants of dried blood on the rocks as he'd washed himself down. He'd never returned with blood on his armour or hands, only the threat of it lingering on him like a faint scent.

Aloy spiraled the area with her scanner twice before picking up his soft footsteps moving away from the mountain trail. She thought for a moment that her worry might have been misplaced - maybe he had left, but as she crossed his steps she spotted the other steps trailing his. Heavy. Armour laden. Armed. He'd been followed by soldiers, or a group of six dressed as soldiers.

The boots were clearly Carja. But so far from Carja cities or barracks that Aloy felt her teeth clench. Nil wouldn't have knowingly led anyone back to her, Carja or Nora, or Banuk or otherwise.

The site of the skirmish was thankfully bloodless. Nil didn't put up a fight. Certainly not one with weapons. Which only mean they were actual Carja soldiers. Not Bandits. Not Shadow forces or Eclipse. Aloy let out a breath and followed his steps as her mind pieced images together. Where they'd taken his weapons and put him in chains. The slide of a foot as the chains were pulled taut and he'd almost stumbled catching himself.

It didn't take her long to find their camp, nestled in the forest and rock, though it was less of a camp and more the starting of an actual barracks - one of stone and mortar, and much further north than any of the others.

Aloy stepped out into the open, approached the gate and when no one seemed to spot her or sound an alarm, she gave the wood a thunderous kick to announce her presence.

"Open up!" she yelled.

There were sounds of scuffling boots and the rattle of weapons as she disturbed the likely sleeping sentry. The sun had gone down, Aloy discovered. She hadn't noticed it slip passed the horizon. Hadn't cared about the darkness that spilled over the land in it's wake.

The gates creaked open and Aloy found herself facing a half dozen Carja arrows. She stared the soldiers down. Each and every one of them. She was wearing the old tech armour and she highly doubted they were traveling with the sonic neutralizer Sylens had developed to counter it.

"Lower your weapons, _now_!" A familiar voice cried out in the darkness. "There's clearly been some mistake here!"

Aloy pushed passed the soldiers and stepped into Erend's space, baring her teeth in a grimace that she could see rattled him. They were friends. Or they had been not too long ago.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

From the line of Carja a man called out to her.

"Arrested for murder," but Erend turned to him, a furious look on his face, before giving an apologetic bow to Aloy.

"Hence the mistake,"

"Who's murder?"

"Yours," Erend said, scratching his head awkwardly. "Witnesses said you two went up but only he came down. I sent some people up the path but they couldn't find you,"

"So you just assume he'd murdered me?"

"I asked him about you, but he wouldn't talk. The soldiers know him, Aloy. It seemed a reasonable conclusion."

"And you don't recognize him?" Erend looked at her cluelessly. "From the battle at Meridian?" she elaborated.

She detached the repaired headdress from her waist and held it up at Erend's eye level, watching as it sparked some sort of memory in him. He winced as the situation finally became clearer.

"Shit," he mumbled wiping his face.

"I didn't expect you to drink so much at the celebration that you actually forgot who you _fought_ beside, Erend," she chastised him. The Oseram was already leading her to the hut they were temporarily using to hold the prisoner.

The doors opened and there he was, sitting calmly, his legs crossed. A fading bruise on the side of his face the only sign of injury. Nil's eyes widened only ever so slightly seeing her but Aloy knew him well enough to note the shock. The surprise that she'd come looking for him.

She didn't need to ask, Erend was quick to take the chains off and Nil was free before he could stand.

"You could have said she was alive?" she heard Erend grit through clenched teeth.

"With the assumption that you'd have believed me?" Nil asked quietly turning to glare at his former warden.

Aloy physically separated them, a hand on each of their shoulders and when Nil turned to her she placed his head piece in his hands. Cleaned and repaired. She saw the way his thumb brushed the new untarnished replacements she'd made.

She turned to Erend.

"So why were you out here with fifty men searching for me?"

The Oseram had opened his quarters to them and had food and drink brought. Aloy picked slowly trying to hide her hunger but noticed that Nil touched nothing. Sitting with a scowl on his face, glancing occasionally around but leaving the longer, harder stares for her. Aloy had never felt so vulnerable before. His face was unreadable.

"When you left the city I think Avad knew that you'd likely hit your limit with his prodding, but the nobles started making demands. 'Where is she? Why'd she leave?' He couldn't very well tell them he thought he'd driven you off, so I offered to take some men with me and go out and look. I never actually expected I'd find you - after a few months of nothing it didn't seem like you were going to surface."

"I knew if I stayed, I'd probably change my mind about leaving at all, and it's not over; the danger isn't passed. I'm only just starting to see how much trouble we're still in. Eclipse spies were still following us."

Erend nodded sagely letting out a heavy breath.

"Then stay a while and rest, I'll take an update to Meridian myself tonight. Tell Avad personally. The fear that Eclipse are raising another army should be plenty to keep him and his people quiet," Erend stood and moved to the door smiling back at her. "Was good catching up, if you're back in Meridian, you should stop by and meet my wife," he snorted closing the door behind him and leaving Aloy sitting there in shock.

She'd really been gone so long?

Aloy hadn't noticed Nil move until she felt his hand on her wrist, pulling her to her feet and suddenly his lips were on hers again; his hands sliding around her waist and pulling her flush against him. His heart beat so strongly against his ribs that Aloy felt it even through her armour. She felt his tongue at her lips and she deepened the kiss, letting them dance. As breath became an issue and Aloy pulled back heaving she found him staring at her. Nil cupped her cheek with his palm.

"I'd wondered if you'd find my tracks. If you'd even think to look."

"I'd find your footsteps in a sandstorm, Nil," Aloy said with a smile.

When they kissed again it pulled her from herself and Aloy lost track of everything else. She didn't noticed how he'd undone the clasps of her armour. Didn't remember him sliding the shirt from her chest until she felt his teeth graze the underside of her breast and it was suddenly too late to feel embarrassment as she arched her back and pressed into his mouth desperate now for more. The corner of Erend's desk bit painfully into her rear and the sudden shocking jolt made her laugh. Nil let her shirt slide down and stepped away taking stock of where they'd ended up and just how fast they'd ended up there. Even he likely realised that there could be such a thing as too tight a wire, and snapping wires tended to lash back and cut deeply when they did.

Aloy didn't let him step far from her, carefully catching his arm before he drew the wrong impression. She pulled him back into her and looking directly into his darkening eyes - pupils now wide as saucers in the dim candlelight, she kissed him softly, winding her hands into his dark hair. She was a hunter who knew the value of patience. The breath that she contentedly sighed, brushed the curve of his smile as Nil pulled her close and turned to bury his face in the crook of her neck.

"I missed you too," Aloy crooned in his ear as he laughed then against her skin.

"A drowning man doesn't miss air," he whispered to her.


	8. Chapter 8

Nil counted the scars as he undressed her. Some he knew well - could recount each stitch he'd placed in her side by memory, had helped clean the wounds on her arms and many others. But there were ones that were less familiar. His lips traced the one on her throat, knuckles brushed some ridged skin on her legs; a set of striped scars on the front of her right thigh that were old - very old, perhaps a watchers claws from when she was younger, judging by the size. Marks that told him stories she'd likely already forgotten about herself.

Nails down Nil's back dragged a long, low groan from his throat and as he shuddered, he found his fingertips digging just that little deeper into the flesh at her hip, holding Aloy as if she might vanish. He rolled his pelvis harder and bit back a salacious moan as he felt what was coiled at her core - taut and hot and almost ready to spring, clenching violently down on him as he moved. She was stronger than most - far stronger than average and Nil knew of no one her equal. He felt the power of her heels digging into his back and a thought hit him hard; that if she wished she could crush the life from him. Just as much as he knew that if given the choice, in that moment, he honestly might have stayed to die, rather than leave. His life had been hers for some time already. Long before the mesa. And if she wanted it now, she could take it.

He tested her with another hard stroke and delighted in the enthusiastic, ecstatic cry that left her lips, brushing his ear. Sweat ran down his chest and shoulders, following the channels her nails had already dug in his flesh and Nil could taste the salt at her lips, on her tongue - felt the blood swell in them as she bit lightly at his bottom lip, driving him mad, he realised.

When she finally came undone around him, it was with his name in her breathy cry and the sound was sweeter than the twang of an arrow in bone. He lifted his head to stare at her face as she navigated the afters of her orgasm and as he looked down into her bright eyes, she leaned up with a smile, flicking the tip of her tongue up against his top lip. Nil's world bottomed out as he tumbled after. His body going limp as he sagged against her, feeling the orgasmic pulsing of her walls still, even as he felt himself soften inside her.

"If I knew you could do that, I wouldn't have waited so long," her lips and cheeks were pink when she looked up at him smiling and Nil had never seen anything more beautiful. 

"It was admittedly better than I remember," he muttered, resting his head back between her breasts hearing the thump of her heartbeat, now pulsing in time with his, beating hard in the same quick rhythms.

Truthfully, sex had never been a driving factor for Nil. Cold, mechanical - pleasure was brief and unsatisfying. It had been something he'd experienced enough of to know he could live happily without it. It was certainly nothing like this. Every touch from her like lightning. Every gasp, every moan spurring him higher and higher. The way she seemed to draw out his own pleasure with just the tinges of pain - with her nails and teeth, marking his flesh as hers.

Aloy was inexperienced in such things. But what experience with sex she lacked, she most definitely made up with in her knowledge of him. And she'd shown him just how well she did know him. Inside and out. His emotions. His body.

The crackling of the boar fat in the fire made him blink one tired eye open. One hunger satiated, his stomach rumbled and still under him, he felt her burgeoning laughter.

The forest was so still around them- the sky so clear a poet might have even labelled it romantic.

Nil sat back on his knees and drank in the sight of her spread out before him. He rested his palms on the inside of her thighs and drew lazy circles with his thumbs, watching the way she closed her eyes contentedly.

The low, quiet moan that slipped her lips made the crackle of meat a far away thing all of a sudden and Nil felt himself react - hardening all over again. A wonderful little traitor that part of the body could prove to be.

He hadn't realised he'd closed his eyes until he opened them to see her watching him slowly rising once more. Nil hadn't had so much as a chance to speak before he was rolled to his side, Aloy suddenly straddling him.

He sucked in a shaky breath and she waited a moment for him to toss her off or object, before she reached down to grip him and he was swallowed in her heat again. He gazed up at her feral grin. Noting the way she dragged her bottom lip through her teeth, head tilted back in rapture. And then she started to move, at first a few tentative rolls of her hips, but in seconds, his huntress was setting what Nil could only describe as a brutal pace. Moving over him with a strength and ease that made his breath catch. If this was what the sun-priests would have him repent for, Nil would happily call himself an apostate and forsake his homeland.

Red heat streaked across her cheeks as Nil moved his fingers to grip her thighs and stared at the way her hands came up to cup her breasts. He let his thumb find her slick core and applied a few wet flicks and she fell again, tilting her head back and crying out her release. A howl. Like a beast. Nil following a few moments later with an exhausted grunt as she fell off him and to the side with delightful laughter.

"I'll definitely need to eat before any third attempts," Nil muttered with a grin as she continued to laugh, propped on her elbows at his side. She was so, so beautiful. And her laugh? It sang to him.

"Music," he whispered revenantly, moving a hand to touch her chin. Her hair was wild and tangled and despite the bedrolls beneath them, it had still managed to pick up some forest litter. Nil plucked a dried leaf out of the hair above her ear and blew it away.

He stood and took several sliced of boar from the flank, sitting again and offering her a sizeable helping.

"We should reach Lone Light the day after tomorrow," she said tapping the focus still hanging at her ear. The only thing she was wearing. Such a curious little device.

"The group is still camped on the southern border of the town. They'll likely move before then, but they don't know we're coming."

"Do I sense _eagerness,_ huntress?" he teased her. She'd told him once that they were different but it wasn't entirely true. There was something of himself he found in her. As much as he'd found something of herself in him.

"Eagerness to see familiar mountains again, maybe," she dodged his question.

This was the last large group of Eclipse members Aloy had found with her focus. Once she was finished with them, they would begin the long March back through Nora lands to the mountain where she intended to look for a means to resurrect the one she called Gaia. The machine she'd explained had remade the world and brought forth life anew. The machine that had built and birthed Aloy to fight the darkness. Nil didn't believe in all-knowing gods, didn't pray to any all-seeing divine power, but Aloy's all-mother sounded as close to one as he'd ever heard. The Carja believed in myth - they crafted stories around the untouchable - the intangible. The Nora worshipped a being that was very real. That lived and thought. It was nothing to be worshipped.

And yet, as such could be considered, Aloy was the daughter of something not quite unlike a living god.

They dressed and ate and Nil slept by the fire one arm draped around her. Savouring the moment and enjoying the thought of the fight to come.


	9. Chapter 9

They bowed to her as she passed the gates, whispering and muttering amongst themselves in a way that made Aloy's skin crawl - looking at her as though she were more than she was, but the title of anointed meant they didn't hinder Nil as she'd initially feared and that was some relief. Though she knew he felt their hard, curious - and in some cases judgemental stares as they walked. Likely Sona and the other Nora who'd fought in Meridian had told quite a tale of their battle against Hades, but Aloy knew that it was for different reasons that Nil held their attention now, still dressed in his Carja armour despite the offers of alternatives as they'd passed through Mother's Crown. Winter was already beginning to pepper the lowlands with snow and there was a bite in the air sharper than her spear. Aloy had travelled the frozen lands of the Banuk enough to realise that it would only get colder. This was to become a truly ruthless winter.

Despite her hopes to the contrary, Nora lands still hadn't recovered from Helis final attack. The death toll had been immense and there were no quick returns from that. Most of their braves had died in the fighting. Most of their villages burned to the ground and their forest laid to waste.

At the fortress she learnt that mother's cradle and mother's heart had been all but abandoned. The matriarch consolidating all that they had - what little they had - all of their people, into one place that they could defend even though the enemy that had come for them was long defeated now. Aloy and Nil had slain the last fighting group a day before the Western gate. Bathed the tree bark in their blood.

Though Aloy could see it; the end of the Nora. A people now so diminished she couldn't fathom their future. But she wished to see Teersa and the others See what had become of Sona and Teb and - may the All- Mother forgive her, even Resh, that old bastard. As they passed the Western gates her eyes must have betrayed her because Nil had grinned and said "Yes, yes... very exciting," which only made Aloy want to laugh more.

They reached Mother's Watch to find stone in place of the usual Nora wood, some outlander traders at the gates haggling over furs. It was so very different - so very unlike the Nora at all and she couldn't help but slow her steps to get a better look around.

Some faces she recognized, some she did not. The atmosphere was one of distrust and anguish. There were some hushed whispers of 'anointed' as she climbed the hill to the mountain entrance.

Where Varl stood sentry at the doorway, spear in hand. He smiled when he seen her, standing just that little bit taller. That little bit straighter. His eyes quickly glanced over Nil, still in his light Carja armour and he laughed.

"I thought you wanted to die in battle? Not lose all your limbs to frost?" he joked, extending a hand to him.

Aloy looked questioningly at Varl. She hadn't expected any Nora to recognize Nil from the battle. Especially when Erend hadn't.

"My spear broken, and this one charges a corrupter with a burning piece of log yelling something like 'show me your eyes'," Varl shook his head.

"You beat a corrupter with a piece of kindling?" Aloy turned to Nil.

"No - no, I _attacked_ the beast with a piece of flaming kindling," his grey eyes flickered in what Aloy knew was amusement.

"ALOY!"

A figure appeared from the mountain and forcefully shoved Varl out of the entranceway. The man stumbled with a curse and a sharp bark of rare laughter from Nil as Arana, now several inches taller than Aloy remembered, tackled her in a hug that rattled her ribs in a reminder of their injury months past.

"Sona told us stories of the battle. How you slew machines the size of buildings that belched fire and metal and crawled up the mountains like spiders," she babbled happily, her tone was as wistful as Nil's reminiscing face. Aloy could almost see him replay the images of the deathbringers March from the west. Only he could look so thrilled by a memory so dark.

"I wasn't alone," Aloy told her, giving a subtle nod to Varl.

_"Anointed,"_ Arana inclined her head and instantly Aloy's mood was soured.

"Enough," Varl gently shoved the girl away. He was one of the few that knew Aloy's distaste for the title.

"Anointed?" Nil leaned in close to whisper in her ear.

Aloy could only frown in reply. It was complicated. She led Nil through the mountains chambers - the all-mothers mountain had become a shrine to the dead and the departed, and everywhere she looked there were piles of flowers, bowls of milk and fruit left as offerings beneath markers adorned with broken spears and clothing and personal tokens.

Once a place of worship and prayer, it was now a graveyard.

"Anointed!"

That word again. Her title chiming like chains in her ear, but Aloy greeted Teersa with respect and said nothing more about it.

"You bring a Carja Outlander with you? Into Nora lands, into our sacred mountain?"

"I'll be outside where the air is younger," Nil said with an obvious scowl, but his fingers touched Aloy's wrist softly as he turned to go. _I'll be nearby if you need me._ Aloy heard.

"Nil has saved my life more times than I can count, Teersa," Aloy tried to placate the old woman. "He has helped me hunt down the last of the killers that invaded the sacred lands."

Teersa didn't seem entirely convinced. War and suffering and death had made her less agreeable it seemed.

"It seems a little hypocritical to be admonishing me for bringing an outlander here when there are already so many ourside. The buildings - they weren't crafted by Nora?"

"Sun King Avad sent emissaries with resources and craftsmen."

Aloy felt her breath catch. Never in the history of the Nora had they accepted aid from another tribe - never had another tribe offered aid either.

"He sent you help?"

"Yes, though he called it _reparation_ ," Teersa said, and from her words it was clear to Aloy that she still didn't quite understand the term fully. "The forests were burned by the machines they brought, it will be many years before we see new growth... we could not spare the wood."

And for a moment Aloy's fear for their future lessoned. The Nora had accepted help - accepted change to stave off their extinction. They would fight against the end.

"This outlander you brought..." Teersa started to say but stopped. Holding her question in close. "I'll have one of the hunters huts cleared for you. A fire set for tonight."

"Teersa?" Aloy asked her. Sensing the woman knew very well what Aloy's relationship with Nil was. But the old woman shook her head.

"I'll say no more on it. Tell me, you've come to speak with the goddess?"

"I have,"

"Then go, we will speak after."

Aloy scoured the databases and downloaded everything she could to her focus. Gaia's backup was dorment and divided. A copy of her consciousness split across numerous bunkers, spread as far and beyond the borders of the forbidden west. Aloy would be seeing more of the world than she thought before Gaia could be restored.

The mountain was quiet and night had fallen when she emerged, bracing herself against the cold night air. True to his word, Nil sat patiently outside. He was accustomed to waiting. Though Aloy could see his body struggling with the temperature.

"Learn much?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Too much. Far too much. "Teersa has set aside a place for us to sleep _. You_ are going to need something warmer, Nil." She tugged at his red scarf. The skin she touched at his collar was ice cold.

But Nil took her by the waist and held her close, sighing at the warmth seeping into him.

"My fire for you keeps me hot enough," he murmured.

"It won't keep you from frostbite." Aloy laughed.

"Very well." He grumbled. Carja were a primarily desert people, though gleaned from conversation, Aloy had learned that Nil had grown up in the denser, more humid jungles.

The hut was warm and to Aloy's surprise, a set of Nora leathers had been left for Nil. He held them up frowning while she sat by the fire with a bowl of nuts. She half expected him to sniff it, but instead he slipped his armour off, set his headdress down and put the clothes and boots on. He was almost unrecognizable in Nora clothing, but for the hair and the dark smudges beneath his eyes, and Nil at a distance looked just like any other Nora brave. In their travels, Aloy had worn Banuk furs, Carja silks and Oseram leathers. She understood the strangeness in a change of clothing all too well.

"You look... _warmer_ ," she smiled.

"I've not been in Nora lands in Winter before."

"This doesn't exactly feel like a normal winter," Aloy admitted. She thought of the Banuk up north. How their lands had been cooling over the course of hundreds of years. Was that the fate of Nora lands, too?

"The summers in Meridian have been steadily growing hotter," Nil said suddenly and Aloy felt the tension eased by the fire begin to return to her body. Without Gaia to monitor and guide it, every point of data she had access to said that the world would grow unstable. "This... is why we're here?"

"I think so. I don't have all the answers yet, but I at least have a start," Aloy smirked at him, "I've heard the bandit camps further west are huge," she purred to him and it seemed to satisfy him.

"From what Varl has told me, worms have slithered and crawled their way back into these lands taking some of the abandoned Nora villages. They've festered into the rocks like a disease."

"Then we'll just have to cut them out then," she said. His eyes blazed eagerly, but Aloy felt a pang of guilt. To a certain extent the world was her responsibility. This was her purpose, her duty. Nil had no such obligation. There would always be bandits. If it was sport he was after he would never be bored. He didn't have to follow her. He was free. Aloy didn't want to be a cage for him. As she talked she watched him take a scrap of material wet with melting snow and began to wipe away the makeup beneath his eyes.

Aloy reached out and caught his wrist.

"You don't have to do that. You've fought with me in every battle. Saved my life ten times over. If you left to go your own way, it's been enough, Nil. You've given more than..."

He pulled his arm free, offended.

"A shadow cannot exist without the sun," he rasped. "You want me to leave?"

"No," she said bluntly. "I don't. I... want you to be _free_ ," Aloy stuttered, unsure of how to tell him that the thought of being without his company terrified her. That the weight of everything she felt compelled to carry - to do, seemed possible only because he stood with her.

Aloy didn't know how to tell him that she loved him. There were any number of ways he might react to hearing that, and Aloy wasn't sure which response frightened her most. But more than any of that, she didn't want him to be trapped by her duties.

Words failing her she pulled his wrist, guiding him down to his knees. Hoping he saw what she couldn't express in the desperation burning in her eyes. Nil took her face between his palms; gaze cutting through her before he pulled his knife free and pressed it into her hands. Aloy leaned back, pulling away but Nil held her firm, setting the tip of his knife over his heart.

"Free me, then," he whispered and his voice was strained. His eyes wild. And he laughed, utterly defeated. Lost.

And Aloy set the knife down and took his face in her palms as he had done, resting her forehead against his before capturing his lips lightly.

"I can't," Aloy breathed against his mouth, and she tasted salt. Her tears. "I can't." she repeated.


	10. Chapter 10

Nil was a proficient climber but watching the Nora braves that had come hunting with him, scale the rocks like lizards, left him with no doubts as to why Aloy was faster. In the desert on the scorching rocks he'd an obvious advantage - his hands no longer felt the burning heat through years of toughened callouses, but as Winter was setting in at the heart of the Embrace, the stone had begun to freeze and even with the additional strips of leather and material on his palms for protection, Nil's fingers _hurt_. A new and unwelcome kind of pain that made the string of his bow itch to slip his grasp.

With a change of clothes and absent the marks of the sun beneath his eyes, Nil didn't get quite so many strange looks. He wasn't a devout Sun worshipper, but it was convenient to look and move like Carja when most tribes kept clear of his people. Peace was a new and fragile thing and Nil exploited how desperate tribes were to maintain that. The only ones out on the road that would attack a Carja unprovoked were bandits, and he did _so_ enjoy when the beasts came to him. So at Mother's Crown the thought of leaving that image of himself behind had initially made him defensive. The idea of appearing as anything other than Carja left him feeling vulnerable but after some additional thinking - additional _shivering_ , he determined that dressing like a Nora, on Nora land was a sound decision and Nil could admit that he was certainly warmer having swapped the silk for skins.

From the time the Nora could stand, they would be taught to climb - that was what Varl had said on the path from Mother's Watch. That he'd been scurriying up stone before he could so much as run in a straight line. No ropes, or harnesses. No fear. And he was the son of the war chief, Nil discovered, not that he would have guessed since she'd brought him to Meridian and almost certain death. There was no favoritism - no special treatment in the Nora. The Carja followed their children around in case they fell. Swaddled them in silks. Gave them important positions in court if they could afford it. The Nora didn't give their children toys, they gave them _spears_. What you had was earned. Through pain and blood and a deadly trial through the mountains when you came of age.

While the Nora weren't savage, there was a sharp, blistering brutality - an order in their society that at some low level Nil found appealing. A structure. A line in the sand. Even though most of their rules circulated around pointless, superstitious taboos which just like Aloy, Nil found to be bothersome, for the most part they were harmless.

All that being said, he was grateful he was _Carja_ , as an outlander, it was almost _expected_ for him to break those ridiculous Nora traditions.

Aloy hadn't talked that much of her childhood. In fairness, Nil had never really asked - sensing the pain it still caused her to reminisce, but it had surprised him to discover how many rules and traditions Aloy broke on a daily basis. She went where she wanted. Showed only as much respect as an individual deserved. Spoke to the outcasts and was entirely honest about doing so.

She would fight for the Nora - fight to the _death_ for her people. Nil smiled - she would fight and _win,_ but Aloy would not be caged by their traditions. She would do what she felt was right. Regardless of what rules she broke in the process.

Her words the night before replayed back to him and Nil understood what she'd meant now. She wouldn't live live that. Wouldn't be tied down and bound by bars someone else had designed in ignorance. And she didn't want to cage anyone else either. He'd thought she wanted him to leave, but he saw it was more centered around his reasons for staying. The impossible fight. The soft vulnerable space beneath armour. The sharp, sudden cry in the darkness. That was where Nil belonged.

He belonged with Aloy.

That's why he remained. He remained for her. Whatever confinement he existed in, whatever box or cage, it was a home, not a prison when she was there with him.

The camp had been nestled as far south as the Nora stretched. Cut into the mountains in a cave not far from Mother's Cradle. According to Varl the mountains were impassible but for a single southern gate which remained barred and undamaged. It hadn't be how they entered. The mountains on either side were sheer drops with crumbling, deceptive holds that wouldn't hold any weight and Nil had been assured that not even a Nora would have attempted to make the climb.

And yet, this clan had appeared almost overnight, like ants spewing forth from the rock, setting up the defenses of a camp there in the caves, and from the fires in the abandoned Mother's Cradle, their eyes were already set on expansion.

The war chief's orders were agreeable to Nil, take some of their most experienced braves - their _only_ braves, clear Mother's Cradle, and burn them out of the mountain.

"Aloy said you were a Carja 'death-seeker'," Varl asked quietly as the waited for the other Nora to creep into position and take down the guards keeping watch.

"A death-seeker?" Nil asked.

"One who leaves the tribe and devotes themselves to the the killing of a great enemy. The Matriarchs tell us that they leave their souls behind. Become dark creatures of vengeance, who thirst for blood,"

"And Aloy told you I was a death-seeker?" Varl nodded and Nil smiled, a warmth in his chest. A dark creature of vengeance thirsting for blood. He could live with that. He almost felt.... _honoured._

The sentries at Mother's cradle fell as one, and in total silence. Nil had seen Aloy put an arrow through a man's mouth in the darkness, and for him to fall without a sound, but she'd called it a lucky shot. It wasn't. It was _practice._ Skill. Nil didn't wait for a signal, he moved like the wind through the grass and the bandit at the gates was looking away when he slashed their throat and they tumbled to the weeds. There was no point in hiding the body. The dozen or so occupying the camp would be dead before this one would be found.

Working with them was surprisingly easy Nil noticed, realising that they used Aloy's tactics. Keeping to the shadows and the grass while Nil raced ahead on light, silent feet. Two quick jabs and the pair seated by the fire slumped dead, food tumbling from their wide open mouths. Nil watched the Nora move in unison - watched three men simply vanish from existence. Become nothing. Their body's gone - only two bows left on the ground as proof of their life. In under a minute the twelve occupying Mother's Cradle were no longer a problem and Nil was looking toward the mountain, were he'd been assured there were dozens upon dozens more.

Varl crouched down beside him having retrieved his arrows.

"We don't have exact numbers for how many are at the cave, we don't know how so many appeared there either. There aren't many of us. Fair warning - this might be certain death," he told Nil as though he would stand, brush himself down and excuse himself from the fight.

Nil felt a pleasant tingle climb his spine.

"Strange choice of words since death is _always_ certain," he smiled.

"I guess you really are a Carja death-seeker, fine. But Aloy will kill me herself if I let her mate die fighting bandits, so do me a favor and don't do anything stupid just yet."

Nil heard the term Varl used and bit down on the corner of his tongue.

"And who said we were mates?" Nil asked, trying to keep his voice calm and steady. Even as his heart thumped furiously under his ribs. The Nora didn't do marriage, but that was as close to it as you could get. And Aloy had only ever introduced him as her hunting partner.

"No one... but everyone with eyes in their head is thinking it," Varl said with a crooked grin. "Not that they approve - " he smirked, "- but they know there's no point in giving Aloy their blessing now. She never cared about Nora traditions and none of that matters anymore," his face fell. "We won't survive the coming Winter."

He was so calm, so matteroffactly casual about his tribes potential extinction that Nil could say nothing more.

Varl was young, but Nil saw the fatigue of fighting already.

There were too many at the cave. Not too many to kill - no, Nil would never let something like overwhelming numbers stand in the way of his sport, but too many for a cave that size to hold. Men and women entered and exited but never the same face twice and carrying equipment he didn't recognize. The interior of the cave would have had to be enormous and the Nora familiar with the area identified the place as a small space into the rock. A small space that had somehow been made big enough for fifty or more bandits.

Nil harrumphed. This cave had a _second_ exit. Possibly something on the other side of the mountains. He was positive and the more he examined the situation, the more certain he became. Which made it less of a cave and more of a tunnel - a path directly into the heart of Nora lands.

He watched them quietly and despite the time he took, Varl said nothing and didn't move to hurry him. The Nora were hunters who knew the value of patience and there he waited as the first flurries of light snow began to fell. A Banuk merchant at Mother's Watch warned of a looming storm and Nil hoped to be out of here before that arrived.

The numbers of Tenakth in the bandit ranks didn't surprise him since they'd originated from the south, but their levels of organization did. The supplies they carried. The rapid expansion toward a second defensible position. Bandits were chaotic, vicious things. They squabbled amongst themselves. Normally the leader of the clans was the biggest, the strongest, but not often the brightest. Left them vulnerable. But this wasn't the case. Nil had seen enough of war to know mercenaries when he saw them.

This - this was no simple bandit clan, this was the start of an invasion. Whoever these people were needed to die quickly. The embrace would not be able to hold off any kind of large scale assault; the Nora no longer had the numbers for that. If outsiders knew just how vulnerable they were, they wouldn't bother sneaking. It was possible that only the Carja crossing the borders further north with aid had given them pause.

They carried boxes, stacking them just beyond the entrance to the cavern and while Nil didn't recognize the symbols and glyphs on the containers he took note in his mind. Aloy might have with her focus, but the best he could hope to do was try and relay it to her later. Once they were all dead. An eager thrumming in his blood warred with the cold knowledge that this was more than it had appeared to the Nora. They simply saw bandits. Nil saw coordination. Funding. Tactics.

"There," he pointed out a guard to Varl at the cave entrance drinking from a thick clay jug, warming his blood against the cold with scrappersap from the smell. Nil gestured to the shrubbery near him. "Send some hunters ahead. He'll need to relieve himself soon enough."

Varl simply nodded in silence and crept away. As he'd predicted, it wasn't long before the man stood and made his way into the greenery to empty his bladder. And with the stealth and efficiency of a stalker, Nil watched the guard vanish from sight. Nora hunters were a thing to behold.

For a moment this all reminded Nil so very much of his years as a soldier. He might not have been on the losing end quite so often if the men he'd fought alongside were half as competent or well-trained. Or perhaps if his superiors had been more rational and made their decisions based on trusted tactics and less in the priests telling them victory was assured because the angle of the sun had illuminated a soldiers helm in such a specific way, and they interpreted that as a positive sign. If position was earned through merit, and battle was fought based on sense and reason, Nil might not have found himself the last soldier standing in so many doomed advances.

But the mercenaries were well organized indeed, and the missing guard didn't go unnoticed for very long. Nil was glad that Varl moved as quickly as he did because they'd all barely gotten in position - their marks made, before a woman in Tenakth war paint came out looking for him. 

"I'll slit your throat myself if you're drunk again," she hissed into the snow. Nil knew the light at her back would make it difficult to spot them in the darkness. 

With all the Nora in position, Nil gave Varl the signal and suddenly everything was motion and shouts and screams, and his place in the world was a little surer than it had seemed the day before. He moved, letting loose an arrow and the Tenakth mercenary fell. But he didn't stop to stare, in an instant the occupants had realised they were under attack, and where bandits would have rushed about in chaos, charging them, these warriors came together to form a single defensible line against the Nora. And as Nil had feared, from the depths of the cave, he heard the clamour of shouts. The rattling of weapons and gear.

And now Nil knew it was simply a matter of time before they began to push back. This wasn't a hunt any longer. This was war. And the rules in war were different.

These Nora were all going to die. And if they did, it truly would be the end of them.

"Pull back," he hissed to Varl, who bared his teeth back at him with a growl, already lost to the pull of the fight, but Nil held up a canister of blaze taken from one of the dead mercenaries and shook it in front of him, Varl's eyes widening in recognition; knowing what he was planning.

The braves retreated back into the forest while Nil and Varl covered their retreat with a volley of arrows.

At the mouth of the cavern, Nil threw the blaze at the mercenaries, passed the head of his arrow through the torch flame and stuck the canister a moment after it landed.

The explosion was larger than Nil had been expecting. Far larger. The force knocked him back, taking him off his feet and sending him careening through the underbrush in a hail of smoke and fire and dust and darkness The mountains seemed to shake with the force of it. On the cliffs above stones cracked and broke away and Nil was only half aware of blocks thudding in the snow around him. His ears were ringing when he finally made it onto his knees coughing. 

While the blaze had brought down the cave entrance as he'd intended, it must have ignited something far more volatile inside. A hand on his shoulder made him turn his head to see Varl's lips moving silently. Nil massaged his ear drum, still deaf but the ringing was beginning to subside and the crackle and the thunder of broken stone was crawling in to replace it. He stood shakily feeling the pinpricks of pain all over. Shrapnel, he realized. But mostly deflected by the toughened hide he was now wearing. A handful of tiny, shallow wounds peppering his chest and arms and legs. He groaned; something beyond the blast had hit him and his ribs and stomach ached. When he glanced around he saw the remains of a bald man close by and he realized he most likely had been hit with a flying corpse.

And Nil laughed. 


	11. Chapter 11

Aloy had spent the day with maps and charts purchased from the outlander merchants at exorbitant prices that made her choke a little on her own spit. Her back ached, hunched over the scrolls, trying to overlay them with the old ones bases projected by her focus. 

And it was was difficult. In a thousand years, the landscape had changed dramatically and the Oseram leather maps just weren't accurate for what she needed. But so far, she knew of at least one location, deep in Carja territory; nothing more than a hatch down into the earth she'd passed once as she travelled. A start at least. Five locations in total. But she knew her real trial would be still to come. Some of the bases listed in the data stream Aloy suspected were beyond what maps she would be able to get ahold of. Further than any would travel; in the Forbidden West. Perhaps beyond that.

She'd heard the explosion in the mountains all the way from Mother's Watch and though runners for the tribe sent word that the bandits had been taken care of and their lands were once again safe, Aloy could admit a feeling of relief to see Nil return with them. Dirty and banged up, but grinning nonetheless. They'd suffered no loses and she could see the immediate improvement in mood that it brought throughout the Nora village. Victory was an especially sweet thing when their grief had been so bitter.

For the first time since arriving back, Aloy heard laughter and cheers and her heart warmed to witness it. A great bonfire lit out in the open for all to enjoy. For the first time since they arrived, no one mentioned the scheming Carja Outlander Aloy had dragged with her and she estimated that to be a vast improvement. Varl had that spark of curiosity the Nora sometimes resented and she could see him bend Nil's ear with question after question; he seemed agreeable to answering if looks were anything to go by. Also something unexpected. Nil was liked by one other Nora at least.

"They tell me your mate fights well," Teersa's voice at Aloy's ear would have startled her if she hadn't been so tired and her senses so dulled by reading. 

She heard the disapproval in the Matriarchs tone and bit down on the anger nipping at the heels of her response. Aloy swallowed and sucked in a breath to calm the fire in her voice.

"He's been traveling with me, hasn't he?" she gave a short bitter laugh that Teersa didn't believe for a moment was actual humour.

"Varl reported to Sona that the people in the southern caves weren't bandits, Aloy. She's already spoken with the Carja - "

"His name is _Nil_ , Teersa," Aloy interrupted. The words tumbling out passed all restraints.

"She has spoken with the _outlander_ and is in agreement that they are more likely mercenaries. Though their presence on our lands asks more questions. Bandits I can understand, at least."

"Invasion or worse, Teersa," Aloy said and the old woman nodded. That seemed to be Sona's opinion, too.

Aloy bit down hard, feeling her teeth crack. She'd left on a mission to save the world and let her home be destroyed in her absence. Now, they _knew_ something was coming and still - still the world pulled her away from it. The bunker in Carja wasn't as far as it would have once been for her, but still, it was several weeks of travel there and back with her people defenseless, and Aloy's stomach sunk with the fear of what might be waiting for her when she returned. They needed her.

Teersa gazed at her, feeling her conflict. The look on her face as if she knew what was going through Aloy's mind.

"Rest tonight, but think on it tomorrow," the old Matriarch looked out over the people eating and drinking and smiling and set a hand on Aloy's shoulder in solidarity. "If you must and the Nora must fall to bring about the All-Mothers return, that is something we must accept."

Aloy felt anger again. Rage, hot and burning churn in her stomach and threaten her throat with vomit. At what point would the Nora stop sacrificing everything? Why couldn't it be the Oseram or the Banuk this time? Her people had suffered so much, and now they were to endure more. 

But she said nothing more to Teersa, turning away from the Matriarch and the warmth of the fire, back toward the small hut where her bedroll called out to her. 

She had only barely made it passed the door when familiar arms encircled her and teeth were nipping at her earlobe making her briefly forget her anxiety. Nil now seemed unconcerned with witnesses to the show of affection. There was just the faintest hint of ale on Nil's breath though he didn't seem drunk - wasn't even really a drinker.

"Teersa told me what you found," Aloy said and the words were enough to cool his lips though he kept her in his arms, walking them further into the shelter, closing over the door behind him with his foot.

"Yes, not bandits - more _dangerous_ than bandits," he sighed but she sensed that eagerness in him again.

"Any idea who might have sent them?"

"Unfortunately, we were forced to bring the mountain down on all we found. None of the bodies we recovered carried any letters or evidence that I could see," he purred, his mouth had returned to the skin at her neck and Aloy couldn't deny that it was difficult to wrap her mind around the bad news while his lips trailed hot kisses up and down her throat. 

"I did see many crates with a symbol I didn't recognize," he finally said and Aloy very almost whimpered when he released her. Instead, he crouched down to the floor and dipping his finger in ash he drew a symbol on the wood. She turned on her focus and frowned at him when it notified her that the symbol was a notation for explosives.

If the purpose had been to blast a whole through to Nora lands, why did they still have so much of it, why had no one heard them? Why hadn't they just broken down the southern gate.

"I want you to take me to the caves. I need to see what I can find up there."

Nil was standing again and once more Aloy found his arms creeping around her waist.

"Tomorrow, huntress," he whispered to her softly, guiding her down to bed. 

Aloy didn't sleep that night. Every time she closed her eyes she saw her homeland burning. Saw everyone she knew, dead. Their bodies broken. Eyes still and lifeless. So she lay there, feeling the heat radiating from Nil move through her, bringing her some small measure of comfort as he held her through the snow and darkness, till dawn broke and the noises from the village finally woke him.

"I'd like to see it before the storm covers anything of use," she told him and he huffed a tired sigh as he climbed to his feet. 

"You should eat something first before we go, Huntress," he said stepping outside. "It's going to be a cold day." Said with the casual smirk of a man who'd just discovered fire. Aloy had roamed the cut up north. A snow storm was nothing to take lightly 

The hike to the collapsed caves passed Mother's Cradle, and Aloy couldn't bring herself to spare more than a glance at it in daylight. The ruined Nora gates had been in the process of reconstruction. But instead of Nora walls, they were replaced by sharp, jagged Tenakth spikes. The founding of a bandit camp. The thought made the boar in her stomach rise up her throat again.

But there, right where they said it had been, not far from the waterfall the entrance sat into the mountains. There were a scattering of bodies outside in the grass, a thick dusting of snow covering them where they lay silent and forever still 

Aloy searched the area for anything obvious before turning over one of the corpses. The face and body paint was Tenakth, but mixed in with with their clothing was old world cloth and armour plates. Under the body that Aloy turned, a jagged piece of sheared container winked up at her. She wiped the snow and rock off it. It was imprinted with the explosives symbol that Nil had described to her.

Aloy read the words beneath it. 

"Nitroglycerin," she repeated.

Old one armour and craft. Mysterious attacks. Aloy felt her heart ache again. She couldn't leave them. Not to the mercy of another Helis.

"They won't be coming in this way at least. You mentioned a southern gate?" Nil asked and Aloy nodded, leading them in the direction of the wooden barricades to the south. A wall that would prove useless if they were carrying explosives that could topple mountains.

"There," Aloy pointed out the narrow pass to him and watched as he jogged ahead. Stopping to check both sides of the ridgeway of mountains. "What are you thinking?" she called out to him and he turned with a grin.

"I'm thinking more explosions," he smirked. "If they want into Nora lands, let them take the road through Carja territories or waste their time beating their fists against the rock here."

Nil's idea made Aloy want to laugh. It might work. It would also likely enrage two of the three Nora Matriarchs and half the remaining Nora at Mother's Watch enough to have them officially banished. The Aloy cycle of exile, savior, exile that all the tribes seemed to go through. But... at least it would make any sudden bandit or mercenary appearances unlikely. The Nora would hear anymore blasts and even with machines it would take days if not longer to clear a path again if they destroyed the gate here and now. It would give them time to get to safety or formulate a defense strategy.

"How many caves like that are there in this area?" he asked her and Aloy bit her lip in thought.

"None that I know of," she said, but the truth had been that she'd grown up in these lands all her life and that 'cave' had only ever been a shallow indentation in the rock before. "Let's hope there's no more ways in they can cut a hole out of."

Aloy examined the rockwall sides of the southern gate with her focus and marked to memory where they would need to set the containers of blaze; roughly counting how many of them they'd need. All around her the snow had begun to fall heavier and heavier and the icy chill of the coming storm began to creep into her bones.

"Let's get back," she said. Nil was managing better than she'd expected or was simply hiding it well, but he wasn't shivering. Aloy felt mildly affronted by how much better her was taking it. "I think I've got frost in my teeth," she joked, giving him a weak frown.


	12. Chapter 12

Nil woke to the feel of her pressed perfectly against him, as though every inch of her body had been molded to fit him. Every curve slipping into his, pouring against him like warm oil. Her hair tickled his nose and he felt himself bury his face further into the red mess of braids.

"The sun's rising, we should get up and prepare." 

"The sun still rests from where I can see," he murmured against her.

She retaliated with a bark of laughter and a gentle elbow to Nil's ribs, still tender from the cave collapse. Standing and stretching it seemed she was in a better mood than the days passed. Aloy was a morning person. Viewing each new day as a chance to improve something. But things lately had been far from optimistic and Nil knew this was likely to change as the day progressed. Every day was the same. She would wake with a smile, but that would be replaced with a furrowed brow as sleep took her.

"Well, the sun is up now," she said. She was teasing him and he honestly didn't mind it. "We should leave before Sona or any of the others catch on to what we're going to do."

"Sona knows," Nil sighed. And Aloy cocked an eyebrow up at him in concern. _"Huntress,_ you bought up every canister of blaze in all of the sacred lands yesterday. She's the _war chief_ , of course she noticed,"

"And she didn't object?"

"Initially. But she knows the best way to win a fight sometimes is to avoid it entirely."

"Unusual to hear _you_ talk about avoiding fights," she said.

Nil frowned. A hollowed, burned out place filled with women and children being invaded and annihilated would not be a fight, rather a slaughter.

"I do know the difference between sport and extinction," he said.

"Maybe," she murmured before his estimates about her mood proved true and her expression darkened. "I don't know if I can leave them again. Hades was a race, but _this_ isn't. We could have years...or decades even before Gaia becomes a problem. I'm not going to leave them here to be wiped out by another madman with a grudge."

But Nil suspected that while Aloy believed this to be true, if it came down to it - actually boiled down to a single decision. To the Nora, or the world? Aloy would choose the world. But that decision would haunt her. It would destroy her. Nil knew that 

"I go where the sport is," was all he said. And it wasn't a lie. He simply didn't mention that his idea of sport now included other activities. Memories of sweat and teeth and nails and his name on a kiss swollen tongue just as thrilling as any battle.

"Lucky me," Aloy snorted but there was spark of humour in her eyes. 

Sona hadn't just quietly, reluctantly agreed with Nil and Aloy's plan, and as they made to prepare for the long trek to the southern gate - a cart load of blaze dragged by an accommodating Strider, Nil discovered a half a dozen Nora, and Sona herself ready to go and assist them in blocking the southern path. There was zero room for politics in Nora culture. A plan had been made, no other suggestions offered, and the tribe came together to make that happen. If you weren't crafting a viable alternative, you were helping. There was no room for empty, pointless complaints.

The gate was exactly as it had been left the last time Nil had seen it. The snow had fallen thick and the chill mountain winds had frozen the wood and the barricades closed. No one had come through this; this path had been untouched. Silently, Nil chided himself on not stuffing any available clothes or fur he could find into his shirt before leaving. The wind was bitter. He thought he'd felt cold on the path to Sylens' workshop but this was far, far worse than anything he'd ever experienced. He rubbed his hands together trying to blow the heat back into his fingers, watching Aloy speak briefly to Sona; the war chief beginning distribution of the blaze to the others and pointing the Nora to where they were to place them. In the heavy snow now falling, Nil could see that even they were now having difficulty finding hand holds on the rock. Occasionally stopping to shake the feeling back into their fingers. Around him the winds had begun a terrible howl and despite the hour of the morning, thick black clouds obscured the sun. The sun-priests would call this place forsaken, not sacred. There was nothing comforting in the Nora's Embrace.

With the blaze in position Nil and the others backed away; lighting arrows and putting as much space as they could between them and any potential fallout from the rocks. He'd stitched enough small wounds on himself this week to want to add any more.

At Sona's command they all fired and Nil had to turn away as dust and small stones blew out from the mountain. There was a long, terrible silence where it seemed to all of them as if nothing was going to happen....and then, a great crack like thunder, and the walls of the pass fell, burying the gate in rubble and blocking the road. Nil surveyed it in the clearing dust. An army of a five hundred men would need a week to clear it.

The wind blew again and even beneath the furs and skins, Nil felt himself begin to shiver, cut deeply by a cold that now turned his limbs to heavy steel. He looked forward to the heat of the fire. Consoled himself with the knowledge that he would lay down tonight and sleep would find him buried in the warmth and scent of Aloy's skin. The tickle of her hair on his cheek.

Nil hadn't realised his footsteps had turned sluggish on the walk back until he felt Aloy at his side, her arm brushing his. There was concern in her eyes, though the snow beat so heavily against his face that he could barely make out much else beyond that. He honestly wouldn't have known he were heading in the right direction at all but for the Nora's quick, certain steps. He could no longer make out the mountains or the trees or the path. With every rise and fall of Helis foot, snow rose as far as his knees, slowing him down.

"We aren't far," Aloy said. There was frost on her eyelashes and across her brow, and beneath the flash of her jungle eyes, her nose and cheeks had turned a delicious pink.

Nil absently wondered if he'd survive 'aren't far' but Aloy hadn't lied and within the space of minutes Nil found the group passing through the gates of Mother's Watch again. For shelter, the tribe had gathered within the mountain and although Nil felt the heat of their fires on his face, the warmth flowed no further than that. Though he knew he concealed it well, his body was still shaking beneath the furs.

"We're you successful, Sona?" 

He heard one of the old women ask but Nil didn't stay to listen to the response, moving to one of the fires in the now desperate attempt to bring heat back into his hands and body. 

"These need to come off - come," he heard Aloy say quietly in his ear and it made him want to laugh.

"It's - it's _more_ clothing I need, not l-less," he stammered out. He didn't realize his teeth were chattering until he tried to speak. He really was freezing.

"Trust me," Aloy simply said to him and Nil looked up at her in confusion, because he did. He trusted her implicitly. That he'd placed his life in her hands and she would still ask him ...it made something in him ache fiercely.

He followed her through the outer halls of the mountain to a space that had been set up with a cooking pot and fire where she held out a shirt for him. Something new. 

Nil changed and she set a blanket over his shoulders and handed him a hot bowl of boar stew. Even so far from the entrance to the mountain he could hear the noise of the wind, though he'd slipped it's grasp by the fire. Steadily, heat began returning to his limbs but Nil felt an inexplicable exhaustion settle heavily on him. Carja raids had always taken place in the Spring. Or after Summer. They had made little progress into Banuk lands. All of this was beginning to make sense to him. Thick, heavy Carja armour would not protect their men from this kind of weather. Nil pulled the blanket tighter, his skull throbbing. Despite the fire - the heat, his body shivered again. 

But Aloy smiled and pushed a second bowl into his hands. Nil made himself finish it before laying down by the fire; feeling the heat on his face and imagining the Carja sun instead.

There were screams and shouts. Blood, before the feel of it were as familiar to him as his own skin. Men scrambled about in the chaos on their hands and knees crying out for help - for relief from their pain. Pieces of them were carved open to the sun and sky. The white of bone on display for an uncaring god. The boy could see things that should never be visible See hands pressed against skin holding organs inside. His hands, then. Sometimes their own. Next he was standing in a field and instead of a needle in his fingers it was a bow string. He was an exemplary shot. Steady hands. Keen eyes. No fear.

And the screams of the dying no longer bothered him. There were worse things than death he knew. Death was a mercy.

The boy was a man then, creeping back under cover darkness to his home village. The homes long since abandoned - burned to the ground by his own hands before he'd even recognized it. The river clogged with the rot of bodies now. He told himself he felt nothing, but still - still he refused to face it in daylight.

Nil blinked to consciousness, eyes stinging with sweat; burning with the heat. A rattle in his body that made his muscles clench painfully. Limbs lost in the throws of some violent fight with waking. 

Something cool brushed across his forehead but his vision was blurry. Shadows and lights and images that he couldn't make sense of. Hallucinations he told himself.

"Aloy?" Nil whispered. His mouth felt so dry. He was parched.

"She's gone to look for some more winter root," the old voice that was certainly not Aloy's answered him. 

Nil tried to push himself up but firm hands held him down. 

"You have a fever, boy. You need to lay back down,"

"But the storm?" He tried to say more but his mind was foggy and he was having trouble locating the words.

"It rages still. Aloy has hunted in worse. Do not fear for her," the voice was soothing and it reminded Nil of old memories he'd long forgotten. From a time when he was a child and his mother would coo comforting words to him. 

The cold cloth pressed against his cheek and he closed his eyes in bliss at the relief it brought. Soothing the pounding in his head.

"How long?" Nil asked the Matriarch, though he couldn't tell which one of the three it was. 

"You slept all yesterday and did not awaken this morning. The anointed scoured the village for all the herbs that might help but left at noon to look for more," the woman said then tsked at the feel of his brow. "She needn't have fretted. I believe your fever has begun to break,"

"Fever?"

"Yes, _fever,_ outlander," she clicked her tongue at him as if he were senseless. "All their expensive cloth and armour and a cold wind and Carja are suddenly dying."

"My home was the desert," Nil felt the need to suddenly explain. "A jungle as green as..." he faltered in his words. Aloy's eyes burning brightly in his mind. "...stone so hot you could cook on it under the midday sun," he muttered. 

Hands pulled gently at his collar and fingers probed at the small wounds on his chest from the shrapnel.

"What healer stitched these?"

" _I_ was a healer once..." Nil blurted. He was finding it hard to concentrate. In his memory he was a young boy of twelve and his father was making him practice his loops and knots on the boar carcass before war took him - before his mother walked off into the forest. Lost to grief and pain. Leaving him alone to the darkness. And then they came for him. The Sun-King's army. The villagers eagerly pointing for the to take the healers son. Parents dead. No one to vouch for him. Please, spare their children. And he'd left with them willingly, even as they dragged others from their beds still clutching toys. There was nothing left to stay for.

Darkness came for Nil again and when he woke it was to fits of coughs as a foul liquid ran down his throat. It tasted like polluted water; so sour it made his tongue tingle and eyes water. He looked around, his vision becoming sharper. His head was propped up on something wonderfully warm and there was an ocean of red hair framing his vision.

"You made it back," he didn't realise it but Nil beamed up at Aloy. "I feared the cold would take you."

"I've experienced blizzards in the Cut that freeze blaze solid. Walked on lakes of water harder than stone," Aloy said; her way of telling him she would outlast any simple snow storm. 

Nil still felt weak. His body ached as though he'd been toiling for days without rest so he allowed himself to lay there, his head in her lap as the fire crackled.

"Hm..." he murmured pleasantly as light fingers stroked his face - his temples, his brow, brushing up and down his nose. "How long was I this useless, feverish beast?"

"Two days," she leaned down and left a kiss on the tip of his nose. "But I'd hardly call you useless," Nil watched her smile turn almost wicked as she tugged playfully on some of his hair. "You kept some very bored children, very entertained."

Nil reach up and touched his head, feeling the odd braids dotted through it. Between that and his unshaven face there was almost no way to identify him as Carja at all. It was strange. How tribes were almost something humans wore. A painted shell to identify their place in the world. Something that could change. 

Something meaningless for people like him.

Under him he felt Aloy stir, preparing to stand and Nil placed his hand over hers. In his mind he saw long dead images and he swallowed thickly, the bitter aftertaste of the tea Aloy had given him lingering like a bad odor.

"Stay?" he found himself asking her. Sick and weak, partially delirious, Nil didn't know. But he didn't want to be alone.

Her fingers went back to their gentle strokes up and down his nose and Nil relaxed into her again pinching himself.

So he knew he wasn't dreaming.


	13. Chapter 13

She couldn't help herself around him sometimes. His strange laughter - that feathering twitch of muscle in his jaw or crinkle around his eyes. The way he would absently twist her hair around his fingers while they dlrp. All terribly innocuous things that made her heart rate speed up. Made her yearn to have his hands on her again. To feel him moving inside.

While the storm had passed, Aloy knew the thick blanket of snow it left in it's wake would be lingering till spring, and there was little privacy in the village. Plenty of eyes and even more waging tongues to contend with that didn't make Aloy comfortable indulging in the thin walled shelter she'd been given. Yet it was in the dark quiet corners of the Nora town that Nil's hands would still find her. Not caring about people's talk. Or the Matriarch's disapproval. Maybe even because of it. With the heavy snow fall, there were no bandits or enemies to hunt - no safe way to travel to them even if there were and you happened to know their location. Nil was stuck.

And _bored,_ Aloy was beginning to understand.

His fingers ran up her back, his hot breath on her neck before Nil eased her clothing down to pin her against the wall with a single hard thrust.

Aloy let her head fall back against his shoulder feeling the edge of his teeth on the skin at her throat; the cold metal against her palms - the flick of his tongue between them as she bit down on her lip to keep the noises contained. 

"I _want_ to hear the sounds you make for me."

It was early, still dark out and most Nora were asleep. The perfect time for Aloy to examine the great bunker doors in the temple; try and find their control panel or control lock. Or it had been. It was a perfect time for Nil it seemed, too. She was so very close when Aloy felt his hand slip around her waist and trail an agonizingly slow path down between her legs. 

The first sound to leave her mouth was a breathy one as she inhaled. Nil timed the circular caress with a deep roll of his hips and the sensation that hit Aloy was like electricity shooting up her spine and through her hips; she had no hope of keeping it inside. Knowing his plan was a successful one spurred additional fingers to join the first and Aloy was lost to the feel of him.

"AH!" she cried, her legs turning to jelly even as her toes curled; Nil taking her by the hips and, pleased with his work, thrusting harder than before, sagging against her a minute later, utterly spent.

"You love to get me in trouble,"

"It's impossible to hunt in a blizzard,"

"So you'll chase a death wish defiling the All - Mother's temple?" Aloy snickered, righting her clothing and straightening herself. Gaia was not some all powerful deity who could see all the things people got up to in private. She was important. But not omnipotent. Gaia would not know. Aloy doubted she'd care.

Lansra, however? Lansra would likely have Nil killed while Aloy watched on if given the choice. The High Matriarch was not a forgiving woman. Her devotion to the Nora god was without equal and this would likely be a step too far. Aloy closed her eyes a moment cursing her own stupidity for even risking this. 

"Funny, that your people would revere your highest god as a mother, but shun the act that makes them one," he cupped her face, brushing her lip with his thumb.

"It'll be a while before I'm ready to be _anyone's_ mother." she laughed. Aloy felt no desire for children. Not yet. There was still so much to do.

Nil sighed in mock disappointment.

"What a pity," he said, putting his palm to his chest, feigning hurt. "And I did so have my heart set on a litter or two of squealing offspring to steal the best years of my life."

Aloy shook her head. It wasn't _exactly_ her reasoning but for once her and Nil agreed on something. She was so used to him simply going along with her anyway.

"What's going on here?"

Lansra's voice cut through Aloy's mood like a razor blade. Like some sort of demon, she'd appeared at exactly the wrong time.

Or maybe the right time. Certainly better than ten minutes prior, at least, Aloy mused.

"A private discussion, Lansra," she parroted the reply in a light, soft, placating tone before Nil could open his mouth and calmly state that they'd been carefully navigating the concept of children. 

"Fine," she said, before pointing at Nil. "You, come with me," she stated, it wasn't a request.

Nil of course was still unused to the way things ran in the Nora and he made the age old mistake of asking her "why?"

"Outlanders with all your _questions..."_ she huffed. "You will come with me because I've told you to."

Nil looked at Aloy who could only shrug apologetically. Though she could admit she was curious. While there was no animosity anymore toward him - he was an excellent hunter and more than once, Sona had approached him to discuss Carja tactics and formations, but the Nora still chose to give the outlander among their ranks a wide birth where they could. 

Lansra led them to the largest of the buildings Avad's craftsmen had build. A hunkering stone monstrosity bordering between Oseram and Carja in style, circular and low. On the original doors had been gold metal inlay of the sun temple, but the Nora had removed these and replaced them with something simpler. Likely the Sun priests would have scoffed at their savagery - desecrating such an image, but the reality was that the Carja doors wouldn't have kept out a light breeze, forget about snow.

Despite this great building in their midst, the Nora still chose the temple when their safety was threatened. The mountain was deemed more reliable. Which was why Aloy was confused when Lansra led them to it.

Inside, a fire had been lit and Aloy could see Nora crowded round a figure on the ground.

The people parted like tall grass for Lansra as she brought them closer to the source of the commotion. It was a child about ten, pale and sickly. Aloy's eyes followed the path of the blood on their clothes, down to an enormous wound on the boys leg. He'd fallen. Likely sheered it on ice, judging by the crispness of the cut. While Aloy stood there wondering why they hadn't fetched a healer to help him, she witnessed Lansra force a bone needle into Nil's hands and push him toward the child. The others crowding round bowed their heads and moved away most leaving the building entirely. They would not speak to her - they would not speak at all, because they were _outcasts._

And Lansra had _already_ fetched a healer for them. An outlander to work on the outcast child. It was a logic familiar to her. Aloy knew the resident Nora healers opinions on outcasts and doubted he would have agreed. And while a Matriarch could force him, they wouldn't. He was only following their laws.

Aloylooked down at the boys face. She didn't recognize him. And she realized he'd been born outside the tribe. Shunned from birth and never to know why; some inconsequential crime his parents had committed and we're punished for.

Nil looked flabbergasted. Confused. Offended. He looked to Aloy with something close to accusation in his eyes. 

"I didn't mention it to them," she spoke quietly. Though not quiet enough that Lansra didn't hear.

"Didn't need to, girl, this one talked my ear off while gripped by the fever," the Matriarch set down a bowl of clean bandages, spirits and poultices.

Nil had gone very still all of a sudden.

"I can do it," Aloy offered extending out her hands to take the needle.

"You will _not,"_ Lansra barked. Turning to him then. _"He_ will do it." 

And then she left, not bothering to stay and hear any excuses. Nil held the needle, looking it over quietly. Apart from the occasional glance in their direction, none of the other outcasts would look at them or approach. They were banished, and she was the anointed. It aggravated Aloy to think that such nonsense would hold sway over them at this time; while a child lay sick and injured. The comfort of family and friends out of reach because she was the All-Mother's chosen.

Nil lifted one of the boy's eyelids before huffing. He was unconscious. Shock, herbs, Aloy wasn't able to tell offhand.

He touched the wound on his leg carefully, eyes tracking any change or movement on the child's face but there was none.

"I'm usually the one to open up these kinds of wounds, not close them," Nil whispered resentfully. There was a tension in his voice that sounded to Aloy like anger but she wasn't certain. She'd never seen him genuinely angry before.

"It's deep. Can it even be stitched?"

Normally wounds like this would need to be packed to prevent infection. They would heal but the muscle would be weak. The scar enormous. For a child like this- an outcast, he might never be able to run, or walk without a limp. Might never climb. It would be like a death sentence.

"With difficulty," Nil said stiffly.

She watched him get to work, sterilizing sutures and the needle with spirits, before beginning on his hands. With the deft fingers of a skilled killer, Nil placed a carefully woven thread further into the wound, winding the needle thought flesh and pulling muscle closed with knots Aloy didn't recognize. He left a long tail end of thread hanging free from the wound, before closing the skin outside with more familiar stitches. Then he cleaned and dressed the wound. 

It had been so fast. So methodical. And not for the first time it crossed Aloy's mind that his talents were wasted hunting bandits.

"He didn't so much as flinch," Nil said coolly, and Aloy took that to be a bad sign. The boy may have lost too much blood to wake up again. It happened with blood loss; the boy was so small, so young. But not too thin. Outcasts front the Nora they might be, but they were their own community, and they took care of each other.

"I've never seen anyone close a wound like that, did you learn that when you became a soldier or before?"

Nil hated talking about his past. Avoided mention of his family trade where he could. But Aloy still knew so little of his life. 

"There weren't _really_ any healers in the Sun Carja army. You assessed who would be able to fight. You slit the throats of those that couldn't. Jiran didn't _waste_ resources on the sick and injured," Nil's words sliced through Aloy like ice. 

Sensing that they were finished with the work, one of the others had come over, a woman with white rabbit skin at her shoulders. She crouched down, keeping their distance, and it was not Aloy she turned to, but Nil; who touched the thread hanging loose on the boys thigh, holding it up for her.

"If he still lives in a week, take the this end and slowly pull it free. It will undo the deeper stitches. Do _not_ move him or put weight on the leg till those come free, am I clear?"

The woman nodded quickly and reached out taking the boy's small hand. Nil was pale, and didn't body to wash the blood from his hands when he stood and left so quickly Aloy would have suspected stalkers on his tail, but it was the weight of memory she could see that he fled from. She followed him out into the snow.

"What you did for that boy..." Aloy started to say but Nil growled.

"I did _nothing,"_ he snarled. "That boy will die. He might waken just long enough to endure the pain of infection when it sets in - but he will die regardless. If there'd been no eyes watching, Huntress, I'd have escorted him from the world myself. Quiet and peaceful."

The words hit her like a slap.

"You don't mean that," Aloy said, horrified by the thought. Revulsion rolled in her stomach. The boy deserved a chance. _Any_ chance. _Every_ chance they could give him. What suffering was too much to bear was not theirs to decide.

Aloy reached out and grabbed his shoulder, but Nil didn't respond, pulling himself free of her before turning and walking away. 


	14. Chapter 14

Nil couldn't face Aloy afterward. Couldn't look her in the eyes and see the monster he was reflected back in them. But he'd never lied, he reminded himself. He'd told her who he was; never kept that side of himself from her. Maybe _she_ was the delusional one. So invested in seeing the good in him that she would look for something that wasn't there. 

Maybe Nil was a fool, too, to think that if something of himself - something dangerous and dark could be a part of someone so driven to do the right thing, maybe there was something of her in him. Good, bad, they were arbitrary terms. But honor, sacrifice, duty. These were terms with flesh and teeth, and Aloy was _everything_ he admired.

Recovered from his brush with the snowstorm he ventured out with the patrols. His fitted Carja armour hadn't been quite so fitted once he'd tried to wedge it over the Nora leather and fur so he'd taken the borrowed, offered pieces from Varl. The only other choice would have been to break his own down into several individual pieces and stitch them on, which Nil couldn't quite bring himself to do. That would be letting go of some part of his past that still had meaning to him.

Sona seemed to sense the tension and with the numbers of braves so diminished, she had no issue adding Nil to the ranks provided he followed orders. He leapt at the chance to leave. The distraction of potential bloodshed. Whether animal or human. Even machine. Who was he to be picky? He would hunt, and he would find solace in the kill as he once had.

On the trail, Sona was a taskmaster. Worse than any of the Carja commanders Nil had ever served under in his years as a soldier. During his time in the Sun-King's forces, they'd needed whips to drive their recruits. Pain and fear and the knowledge that if you didn't fight they would kill you in the most violent manner that they knew. The same power the Nora war chief held over her Braves with just a look. Just one. It's meaning simple - silent. A question.

Did _they_ wish to challenge her? The answer was always no. 

Nil enjoyed the rules - the ruthlessness if he were honest, and as much as Aloy would disagree, to him there was a freedom in knowing where that line was. Knowing you didn't have to decide how far the rules were to be pushed. Though he what that same freedom could lead to. The same freedom he'd paid for in Sunstone, baking in the heat of a stone cell. The bars of his prison too hot to touch.

Two Oseram carrying a suspicious number of shards and three bows had been scuttling through the mountain pass adjacent to Daytower - avoiding the Carja checkpoint Nil suspected, when the Nora party found their tracks and began to give chase. Sona did not stop to ask them who they were or what they were doing creeping through her woods. If you were sneaking into Nora territory, this was the risk you knowingly took.

At a nod from the war chief Nil put an arrow through the heart of one, as Varl took down the other. But Nil felt nothing. Not pleasure, no joy. There was something fundamentally missing; the act itself was as he remembered it. It was what he'd fantasized about, almost exactly. The slow crisp crunch of snow, the whistle of his arrow, the look of shock on the man's face as he died, blood pouring from his chest; slipping like sand between his fingers. It used to bring him pleasure. Meaning. It was a purpose. But the space inside him was hollow now; unsatisfied with his offering. The act unchanged.

He was the changed one.

They didn't leave the bodies there in the snow, instead Sona had runners bring them to the Carja gates at Daytower for them to decide what was best. Whether they would burn them and cast their names and memory to the wind, or send them back to their people. It was was of no consequence to her. Word would spread: Nora lands were _not_ weak. Trespassers would _not_ be tolerated.

Nil spent a week apart from his Huntress. A long week. And he hated himself for how everything made him think of her. The cold made him ache for her; for the warmth of her breath and skin - for those soft sighs in the darkness. Even the empty whistle of the wind across the rocks was so much like her own that it made his stomach clench in knots when he heard it. When he returned with the others to Mother's Watch he expected to see her - expected to see the wisps of red hair against the white, but she wasn't there. Nil thought long and hard about whether he'd just been expecting to see her or if he'd wanted to see her instead; there at his core a fear lingered that she'd finally parted ways. 

At Mother's Watch Nil asked one of the few Nora who would speak to him.

"The anointed left two days ago to search for more caverns in the southern cliff." Teb, the stitcher for the tribe told him. They'd added additional layering; lining Nil's shirt with fur to protect against the frost. It would be a long time before he grew accustomed to the weather.

"Thank you," Nil said. He didn't bother to ask if she went alone. She did. And he knew it wasn't simply because she was unwilling to accept help - he knew for a fact that wasn't the case. No, Aloy didn't want anyone else's life put at risk for what she saw as her responsibility alone.

Nil was a _....fluke._ A man Aloy believed had a genuine death wish. Something which somehow had made it easier for her accept his help when danger was the road they both travelled.

He was climbing the path toward the mountain when a woman's voice called out "Outlander!" And Nil stopped. 

"I have a name," he said, in no good humour.

"Yes _, I know._ Please, forgive me-" the woman in rabbit skins begged him. "-but I don't know it and they wouldn't speak to the outcasts to tell me either way."

He felt a growl bubbling up in his chest.

"You can call me Nil," he said after a moments hesitation.

 _"Nil,"_ She rolled the name around on her tongue taking a deep breath of relief. Comforted that he would speak to her at all. "Would you assist us in taking out the stitches? Perhaps check the wound again?"

He could only blink, not sure what the woman was talking about and then it dawned on him and air stalled in his lungs.

"The boy..." he whispered in genuine surprise. "...he _lives?"_

"Lives? My son hasn't shut up for days. He wants to stand and run and _no_ words will keep him still," she laughed. But Nil was still confused. Still gripped by shock. A wound like that had killed plenty. Or was that just what he'd told himself as he'd cut the throats of his comrades at the Sun-Kings orders.

And of a sudden, all of Nil's self-righteous, superior diatribe came crashing down on his shoulders with the weight of the rubble blocking the southern pass. He'd found himself on the losing side of another battle he feared, facing the consequences.

He followed the woman to the stone hall were a young boy sat up smiling when he seen her enter. 

"Stay _still,_ child," she clucked her tongue at him. "Let's check your leg,"

Nil saw the dressing come off and bit down hard. The wound was neat and clean; he could see the skin knitting together on the surface. Was it a miracle? Had Aloy's All-Mother manifested in some way to punish him with an act of divine altruism... Or had Nil become so far removed from his father's trade that he no longer knew what was possible to heal from - he'd seen so much death, that he'd forgotten how strong the tethers to life could be.

"You should give him something to bite down on. This will be painful," said Nil but the boy puffed up his chest, shaking his head.

"I _don't_ need it. I cut my leg on the climb to the peak and I made it down all on my own."

Nil laughed. It was just so surreal. The boy's defiance coming as a sharp remedy to his melancholy mood. With a dismissive snort, Nil took the exposed thread and began to pull and while the boy flinched, he did not cry out. Not even as angry, pained tears gathered in the corner of his eyes and fell down his cheeks did he make a single noise. Inch by inch Nil tugged gently. Hoping the thread did not catch or break. He'd counted the finger lengths he used and as it was drawn from the wound he counted them off. _One. Two. Three. Four._ The last inch removed he sighed, sitting back. A tiny droplet of bright red blood welled up on the surface. No infection. Minimal swelling.

"Another week and these outer stitches can be removed," he gestured to the ones still in the knitting skin. "He can take small steps till then."

"Will he be able to climb?"

"Not yet, maybe in a few weeks,"

"But we need to leave here. The High Matriarch's gave us permission to remain while he was healing, but we're to be gone be the weeks end. The others are already waiting up in the mountains for us."

"If he attempts that climb in this condition he will tear what's already healed," Nil stated plainly.

"Their word is law. We're lucky they took pity on us but-"

 _"Pity?"_ Nil interrupted her, and she grew silent. Hers was one of the few Nora children in the Embrace left alive. It was not kindness that twisted the Nora High Matriarch's arms into letting them stay. Certainly not pity.

"Wait here."

He found two of them in the Temple. Jezza and Lansra - the more agreeable Teersa was nowhere to be seen. Strictly speaking, Nil was not permitted in the Temple, but since the blizzard had forced them all inside its walls he'd come and go and no one had stopped him. 

"Outlander," Jezza addressed him while Lansra glowered silently, staring him down.

"You were once hundreds - you once had hundreds of Braves, a half a dozen cities and now, the Nora rot,"

"Do you have anything valuable to say, or are you content spouting what we already know," Lansra snapped and fell silent at the poignant look of disapproval from Jezza. Nil suspected that if they were all tallied, a lot of the banishments were probably at her insistence. Aloy had told him the old woman would have him cast from the cliffs if crossed.

"With so few Nora left you would still shun your own people?"

"They committed crimes against the tribe," Lansra sneered. 

"Most of them were banished for arbitrary transgressions. I break more rules in a day than they likely ever have to earn their title of outcast."

"You are not Nora,"

"I'm not _anything,"_

"You are Carja,"

"No - no, I'm _from_ Carja," he stared at them unflinchingly. "The woman outside with the child, what was her crime to be labelled an outcast?"

"She stole herbs from our healer,"

"Medicine?"

"Her husband was dying, there was nothing more that could be done for him," Jezza said softly. Nil doubted Lansra would remember the such details. "Winter was coming and the tribe needed what she took."

The woman had brought her injured son to people that had abandoned her - brought him to the very people who'd cast her out because she was desperate. She would do whatever it took for those she'd cared about. And Nil thought of Aloy. Saw that same strength. And realized that if it came down to it he would have probably done the same. Rules could be freeing. But Nil as slowly learning that there were circumstances when they must be bent. There were times when they would need to be outright broken.

"I served under Sun-King Jiran - unwillingly at first, but I fought for him of my own accord. By my count my crimes against the Nora are far graver than hers. But you allow me to walk around freely."

"Aloy vouched for you, and she speaks for the goddess,"

"Yes - yes, Aloy is an _exception._ The stone walls protecting you - atonement from the current Sun-King are an _exception,"_ he repeated the word. "You understand the need for those," Nil gestured outside. "There are _needs_ for exceptions in these times."

"And what are you suggesting?"

"This might be the worst Winter, Aloy says and there are untold Nora sheltering in the mountains," he locked eyes with Lansra. "You needn't have bothered having me save that boy's life, if he leaves the safety of Mother's Watch before he's fully healed, he will die. It's likely if the temperatures drop further, those you've outcast will die, too. I suspect they didn't _all_ come down from the slopes because the child was injured," he rasped, his jaw set tight.

They came looking for safety. 

"So we should welcome them back with open arms?"

"If they _want_ to return," he grinned cruelly. "Maybe they'll form their own tribe, up there on the slope."

"Get _out,"_ Lansra shouted at him. Taking a step toward him as if she might strike, but a hand from Jezza held her back.

"And the boy and his mother?" Nil looked at Jezza for his answer. The more rational, grounded of the three. Lansra was at the limit of her tolerance already.

And the High Matriarch gave a slow nod, drawing in a long, deep breath.

"They can stay as long as they need," she said finally.


	15. Chapter 15

The snow was still so deep that Aloy fell twice; almost drowning as it threatened to swallow her whole. At places it touched as high as her hip - at the better, just her knees. Chilling, bone shaking ice saturating her limbs. Nothing as bad as the Cut she had to consistently remind herself. But were they really that far off it, now.

Wind slashed at her face as she hiked the circumference of the range looking for tracks - caves, caverns, smoke - anything new near the southern gate that might indicate activity beyond the occasional outcast campfire. 

But the only life she saw were the blue glare of watchers and striders - a very occasional scrapper or boar. If there had been any further signs of Nil's mercenaries, those tracks were buried beneath the fallout from the storm - likely to stay there till Spring.

There was nothing happening at the southern pass. 

And for the first time in so long it seemed, Aloy found herself on the path up into the hills; walking the Brave trail. That day in her life when it had all started. When her father died and her path had been set. The only father she'd known. The man who raised her to be the stalker that Nil claimed must have birthed her. 

She had no idea when she'd made the turn or how her path had strayed, but Aloy found herself near her home overlooking the great canyon where Rost would take her hunting. Overhead the legs of the great machine crisscrossed like a spider web. A mechanical beast the likes of which could only be seen to be believed. The metal was strong, but nothing lasted forever and the erosion by time was easy to see. The discoloration - the bubbling of something not unlike rust - spreading like a disease across its surface. In enough time, even these would crumble and fall.

Aloy blinked against the wind, staring through the light flutter of snow beginning to fall again. For a moment she was convinced it was a trick of the light - something her tired mind was imagining on an otherwise uneventful trip - but the more she looked, the less likely that possibility seemed. There it was, a fissure down in the canyon below. As though a portion of the earth had split and was swallowed by a fathomless blackness beneath.

Rubbing her hands together, she slowly began the to climb down to the canyon floor.

There were no machines at all, she noticed. As though this hole in the world had devoured them. For as long as she could remember, there were always scrappers in the canyon, drawn by the abundance of old world metals; the relative seclusion. 

There were no animals, no machines at all. 

Had Humans blasting in the rock done this? Was this something new? Aloy wasn't sure which answer she preferred.

"Just what I need on top of everything else," she muttered as she clambered down some old and underused handholds. The bite of the ice was vicious.

At the bottom, Aloy examined the area. Working toward the old scrapper site. She tiptoed carefully to the edge of the fissure, glancing down into the abyss. The space beneath was enormous; a huge cavern, far larger than she could see from her position on the surface.

Aloy knew that at some point she would need to venture into the underworld and find out more, but it wasn't today. Already the sun was beginning to set and with the clouds, there would be no moon tonight to light her way. She would need to resupply back at Mother's Watch: was she anxious or excited at the prospect of seeing Nil again? Was it possible to feel two, so completely conflicting emotions simultaneously? 

Aloy had always stuck to one principle when dealing with Nil; to generally ignore what he said, and watch what he did in spite of his words. Nil would tell her he fought at Meridian for nothing beyond spectacle, but he wasn't there at the final fight, he was busy wrangling machines in the town, helping the people. He would tell her his love was simply bloodshed, but the first time she'd met him, one the first things Nil had made sure mention were the slaves in the camp that she should free. What he saw was a remorseless killer, but Aloy saw something entirely different.

And she'd momentarily forgotten that - forgotten the weight of all the things he carried that she knew nothing about. She owed him an apology.

A voice spoke to her suddenly through her focus and Aloy almost stumbled down into the hole.

"MASTER ACCESS GRANTED: WARNING, ELEVATOR MALFUNCTION."

She froze as the ground beneath her feet began to rumble, spreading her arms to keep her balance. A sound like twisting metal; thunderous and booming, shaking the ground. Aloy watched the great mechanical tendrils move above her. Rocking back and forth, sending boulders and stone tumbling all around. 

It was an earthquake, and Aloy suspected one her presence had caused. 

The ground around her seemed to stutter and her eyes widened feeling the soil begin to give way. Turning she bolted back the way she'd come, dodging falling rubble and clots of earth. Her heart beat loud in her ears, but not as loud as the sound of whirring gears. 

She reached the cliff wall and jumped to her first handhold but to her horror the stone under her fingers had already started to crumble and nails breaking on the rocks, Aloy fell down. The pain of the stone tearing at her hands and arms didn't register, though Aloy felt it rip at her leather. Damned if she wore the shield armour, damned if she didn't, it seemed.

Darkness swallowed her vision and Aloy found herself free falling into the abyss. The world shifted as she collided painfully with something, skidding and sliding before coming to a slow stop on her chest, old water dripping down on her cheek from something above. Aloy took in a deep breath and coughed as melted snow seemed to come with it flooding her lungs for a moment before she hacked it up. Toes wiggled. Fingers moved. She hurt. Gods, every single square inch of her hurt. Bruises beyond measure. Her back, her legs. Aloy felt like a behemoth had sat on her, but as she focused every breath became easier - even as every second proved more painful than the last.

She managed to make it up to her knees; freezing metal stinging her cut palms and Aloy glanced up at the sky to see the edge of the cliffs so very far away now. It was impossible to determine how far she'd fallen. She blinked water from her eyes only to realise it was blood instead. The throbbing in her skull was potentially more serious than she'd estimated.

From what she could determine, she'd landed on a ledge. Stones skittered around her and she heard the distant echo as they fell further.

And then Aloy turned on her focus and the darkness lit up like the Summer night sky. Data points flared everywhere around her and through the holograms she began to take in the shape of the area.

 _"Woah...."_ she breathed. It was a huge cavern of enormous machines. Energy generators. Turbines. Enormous pipes feeding underground; tubes so large they likely stretched under the whole mountain range. Under Mother's Watch - Mothers Cradle, perhaps even as far as Mother's Crown. Maybe further.

"What is this place?" she whispered quietly. They'd barely scratched the surface of what Elisabet and her colleagues had constructed before they were destroyed. Was this some other cauldron?

With a better view of things, Aloy determined it was not a ledge that she'd landed on, but one of these large pipes. Aloy made it to her feet, and crept forward, following the flow of power lines and continuing as far as she could before the surface under her feet began to angle downward and she was forced to find an alternative route. 

All the lines were heading deeper into the machine, so that was were Aloy climbed down to.

" _Greetings, Dr Sobec,"_

Aloy almost lost her footing with the activation of her focus, and it took a moment for her to realise it was a recording and not an active communication. Something picked up from a data point nearby.

" _Good to be here. Been a long time, Alex. How is he progressing?"_

_"Atlas is well ahead of schedule,"_

Aloy repeated the name. Was this another AI, she wondered. Something new. Something that hadn't been a part of Gaia; an independent system, perhaps.

It wasn't a primary control room that Aloy found first, rather some kind of access terminal. Part of Gaia or not, it recognized Aloy as the doctor and suddenly Aloy's focus had begun download of a vast sum of data. 

Atlas - Atlas was a planet terraforming engine it told her. It wasn't an AI; nothing like Hades or Hephestus or Minerva. It was an unthinking tool that filtered sea water, micromanaged weather systems. It had taken a barren landscape scorched by Faro's machines and made something Gaia could seed with life. Taken an atmosphere of fumes and poisons and cleaned it. 

It was Gaia's right hand. 

And as far as Aloy could see, it was mostly dead; its job left unfinished.

Aloy blinked some more blood from her right eye. Her stomach was turning and she felt the herbs she'd been chewing stew unpleasantly. It didn't seem like they were helping. The information she'd gathered so far had come at a cost in blood.

The only thing she hadn't worked out were the mercenaries from the south. What they'd been doing? Why? Had they known Atlas was buried here or was its uncovering simply an unintended side effect of their real goal.

Many questions. 

And Aloy was faced with the prospect of trying to climb out of this place; two words now surfacing in her mind.

"Elevator malfunction, hmm?" she smiled.


	16. Chapter 16

There was a peace to be found in wandering the Nora sacred lands alone. He travelled as far north as Devil's Thirst and circled back along the eastern borders of their lands. The bite of the cold kept him alert and in the silence Nil found he could hear every footfall in the woods. The crunch of snow echoing loudly, alerting him to boar and rabbit and the occasional machine.

The sun was setting, and Nil wagered he must have been close to the hunting grounds heading back south to the village when he found them out in the open. Brazen and unafraid - uncaring that they might be visible to anyone walking the trail south. They'd erected a tent and were offloading supplies to it from a cart; a _hard_ slog in knee deep snow, and though they were fewer in number, they were stocking and moving just as many explosives as before; the symbol he'd noticed the last time was everywhere. On every canister and box and crate that they touched. He contemplated sending a flaming arrow into their midst; letting them go up in a hail of noise and fire and dust, but that was what had happened last time and since that cave in hadn't dissuaded them, he would need one alive at least to answer questions. 

Nil watched them carefully; how they organized and moved. All assigned specific roles and tasks. Lookouts, guards, transport. But none of them would do if Nil wanted actual answers. The average soldier - the average mercenary would fight but that didn't necessarily mean they knew who for, or why. Nil needed the one in charge. Or at least, the one in charge of this lot.

And then he spotted her, a Tenakth in broad shoulder armour carrying a Carja tripcaster, a sling and a spiked club. She was standing watching the others. Not looking out into the snow like her sentries. Not unloading explosives from the cart. Nil grinned; wondering idly how many she'd killed with that club. If there was one thing he'd learned fighting Tenakth, it was to be wary of fighters armed with weapons like hers.

A habit reinforced by hunting with Nora, Nil kept low and followed the path of the sentries walking the perimeter. Silently, one by one, he opened their throats with a short blade and toppled their bodies quietly into the long grass. Tenakth were as predictable as any bandit. Mercenary or not. Nil knew that their leader would be the strongest fighter. The few Tenakth in her group moving crates wouldn't be taking orders from someone they could just as easily kill.

So Nil's next attack put an arrow in her side; sliding the tip between plates of armour below her ribs on the opposite side of her liver. Not immediately fatal. And he smiled at the look of surprise on her face as the steel burrowed deep and she fell to her knees clutching the shaft. The pain had stolen the breath from her lungs and he watched her mouth open and close. Rage, pain. The muted swearing of bloody vengeance. 

But there was nothing she could do as he emerged from the snow slowly unsheathing his knives. There were six of them left. And she was still conscious when Nil finished with them; side stepping their slow arrows, ducking their clumsy swipes. The snow began to fall again and he mused that not even their bodies would remain. They would be forgotten till the spring.

He crouched down and with a hand on her armour he turned their leader. She'd broken the shaft of the arrow and had been attempting to crawl away and when Nil spun her onto her back she swiped at his eyes. Instinctively he dipped his head to the side, fingers snapping out to grip her wrist as she stabbed what was left of his own arrow into his face.

She'd ripped it out. And with it, her life flowed unimpeded now onto the snow.

"Who hired you? Sent you so far from home and into the mouth of thunderjaws," he smiled softly and she seemed to be examining his face. Nil didn't hear the marks of a Nora. His beard was short. His hair mostly unbraided. 

"You are _not_ Nora," she bit out between blood stained teeth and Nil knew she would be dead soon.

He jabbed his free fist into her injured side and she cried out. A single rage filled, blood curdling scream.

"What I am is not currently important," he rasped, hauling her into a sitting position by her armour. "Who do you work for?"

" _No one_ ," she said with a growl and Nil watched the light leave her eyes; her face slackening and the blood in her mouth flow down her chin and onto his hand where he stared at it dispassionately. It wasn't the same without her, he knew. Fighting wasn't the same without Aloy at his side. Knowing that as sleep took him, she would be warm in his arms. 

He stood with a frustrated sigh and a click of his tongue. Unhappy with his failure, Nil began his search of the tent. His eyes widened significantly. At it's center, concealed and protected by the tent, a hole had been dug down into the ground; something wider - darker at the bottom. Nil tentatively looked over the edge. They'd dug down a few feet, but beyond that, it seemed opened up an entrance into a system of caverns beneath.

More underground work. Nil was not a man fearful of much, but he had a healthy respect for miners and a mind of caution when it came to delving into the dirt. He enjoyed seeing the sky; breathing fresh air.

He glanced around for anything of use and saw little more. Two shovels. Three crates of explosives. And there, sitting right on one of the boxes, so small he might have missed it, a small round coin imprinted with an Oseram clan symbol.

The Oseram paid in shards and bartered goods, just like the rest of the tribes in the east, but in their homeland of the Claim, Oseram would sometimes give minted coins to their contractors, to enable them to pass unimpeded throughout their lands. When their work was done, the medallion would be returned. Outside of the claim, a token such as this would be practically meaningless. 

Unless it was to prove to someone that you worked for an Oseram.

Nil glanced down into the hole, pocketing the Clan coin and frowning. The Oseram did love to go delving down into the unknown. If it was them, what were they doing in Nora lands, and why hire Tenakth to soften the ground first? Oseram were never ones afraid to get their own hands dirty. In fact, they prided themselves on it.

Outside, Nil walked the short distance to the snowed in path and notched an arrow dipped in blaze, lit the tip and took aim, smiling. There was no sense in leaving the supplies there for any of their comrades to find.

There was no delay, Nil noted, and the resulting explosion was immediate and so enormous that it knocked him off his feet and into the snow, flat on his back. He blinked, laughing, ears ringing, momentarily disorientated. And then he heard it - or really, felt it crack under him. The terrifying shudder of frozen earth and ice. Eyes wide he turned, scrambling up to his feet and moving away as fast as he could. He spared only one glance back; slowed long enough to see the ground disappear near the campsite before sprinting another fifty feet through the snow, not stopping until the sounds of crumbling earth ceased and the ground stopped shaking.

Nil stood there a moment trying to will the tremor from his hands. The thunder of the explosion still seemed to be rattling through him.

On shaky legs only partially satisfied with his work Nil began the walk back to Mother's Watch. It was strange returning to the same place each night. Not bad. Just different. He was accustomed to living outside - exposed all the time. Always on guard. If he wasn't in a position to cook, he wouldn't eat. If he hadn't gathered enough dry wood, then it would be a cold night. Aloy had changed all that as they'd taken turns cooking and setting up camp. But this was different. He didn't belong here, but Nil knew that if he hadn't eaten, there would still be a bowl of something hot in Mother's Watch if he needed it. There would always be a fire lit and he could rest his head knowing no one was about to creep up on him and cut his throat. 

In the darkness he saw the figure walking the path toward him. Even though it was just a silhouette in moonlight he recognized Aloy at a distance. Her steps slow and heavy. Tired and clumsy. He sped up passing the turn toward the village, getting close enough to see the dried blood on her face. Noting the smile as she recognized him. 

On instinct he brought a hand up to cup her cheek. There was a wound above her temple still oozing, a deep split lip and a black eye.

"I expect your opponent faired worse?" he asked her, getting a dry laugh in reply.

"I fell in a big hole." She was pouting. He wanted to laugh but it was hard when she was looking so hurt.

"There does seem to be more of those scattered about than before," he grinned, tilting her face to and fro, getting a better look at her injuries. Satisfied that beyond a minor concussion, she likely had no lasting damage, Nil brushed the lightest of kisses against her lips.

"I shouldn't have pressed you before," she finally said, breath wisping passed his chin.

"No, in this case you were right. The boy is alive. He survived. And if it were up to me he'd be dead," he bit out.

"Sometimes death is a kindness," she told him tiredly, placing her palms over his, staring him in the eye. "When you know nothing else can be done, but I've seen what you can do. I've the healed scars to prove it."

Nil's next kiss was just that little bit harder. Hoping to convey something of what he was feeling and unable to express, but he pulled back when he tasted blood; her split lip reopening. Aloy hadn't seemed to feel it. 

It had been dark out so Nil hadn't noticed the wide pupils, but as they got closer to the village and torches pierced the night to light their way, he saw that her eyes were round and black, even in the light.

"What herbs did you take?" he asked her and Aloy let out a relaxed, breathy sigh. 

"All of them," she said somewhat dreamily, holding her empty pouch aloft and giving it a stern shake.

"Ah," was all Nil said. Knowing tomorrow would be interesting.


	17. Chapter 17

Aloy woke unable to move and with a blinding headache. The memory of the day before flashed through her mind. She remembered falling into the darkness. Remembered a steep climb up an abandoned elevator shaft and having to literally claw her way through a small gap in the rock to make it out of the underworld. A long walk with limbs too heavy to lift in the snow and then when she was sure she would just pass out, finally meeting Nil on the road. Aloy didn't remember walking into Mother's Watch. _Had he carried her?_ Didn't remember falling asleep or speaking with anyone.

Drearily, she looked around, letting her eyes focus in the light. Finding that her head was resting in Nil's lap and there was a needle and thread in his fingers.

"Don't move," he whispered, pulling another stitch closed.

That jogged some very recent memories and she narrowed her eyes in thought but did as he'd asked.

"I've a vague recollection of you doing this already," she cooed to him. Her throat burned and the empty, hollow, knife-like pain in the pit of her stomach made her want to curl up into a ball and weep.

"I _did,_ but you popped three of them while you slept," Nil said. He sounded tired. Had he gotten any rest at all?

"I guess I didn't feel it," Aloy admitted; guilt stinging her.

From the sounds of activity and the light outside she could only guess that it was late morning. Hunters would be setting out for food and furs.

"Understandable, since you ate enough grey omen to knock out ten fully grown men," he laughed at her then, though his eyes were still focused on the stitching.

Aloy felt around for her pouch and grimaced to find it empty.

"Grey omen and the _rest...."_ she almost gagged now recognizing the faint taste in her mouth. "....I think I ate the _salvebush."_

"Oh, you definitely ate it. And spent most of the night throwing it up, too."

Which was very lucky since the stuff was toxic if ingested. It was for cuts and wounds. Not to be taken by mouth. Aloy lifted her hand to her face and the most exquisite kind of pain racked her body. Every muscle. Every joint. Her vision wavered with it.

Her very _skin_ hurt.

 _"Ughhhh,"_ tumbled out of her mouth. The only exclamation she could make regarding her condition that in any way described how she felt. 

"How do you feel?"

"Like a Trampler sat on me," she managed to rasp and she heard - _felt_ him sigh. He was so warm and moving hurt so much. Sleep pulled seductively at the edges of her consciousness.

"Yes, well, you fell into one of the holes I narrowly managed to avoid. Anyone else I'd expect them to have broken every bone in their body."

"I have some experience with taking the quick way down," she laughed.

"Yes, well I may rush into fights, but at least I'm not picking those fights with gravity."

"Hey, the first things you learn in the Nora is how to fall," she smiled up at him.

Aloy had fallen quite a lot when she was younger. Fallen far. The souvenir perched on her ear was a reminder of that. She'd come out _mostly_ unscathed.

Thinking about her focus sparked another memory and Aloy cursed _. Atlas._ She'd almost forgotten. Laying there unable to move as Nil finished stitching her up and cleaning the blood from her face, Aloy scrolled through the data she'd downloaded underground. There were more recordings. And Atlas's final report before it shut down unexpectedly. _Status: sixty-three percent global conversion. Air quality: ninety-six percent to goal and climbing unassisted_. Aloy read through not quite recognizing some of the words used. _Mainland Europe: currently uninhabitable._

Where was that? Was that what they'd called the forbidden west?

"Did you find anything in _your_ mysterious cavern?" she asked Nil, her eyes had grown tired from reading. She felt nauseous again and her headache had only gotten worse. It was very complicated. All of it. And every time she thought another mystery unraveled, two more appeared to blindside her.

Even though Nil had finished with her cuts, he stayed where he was, her head resting in his lap. He alternated stroking her cheek and twirling strands of hair around his fingers.

"I found some guards at the entrance before I sealed it." And Nil held a small token in her eyeline. 

"More mercenaries?" Aloy was instantly more alert.

"Yes. You know what these are?" he asked, bringing it closer so she could get a better look.

"I've seen them before. Oseram, right?"

Aloy had noticed them worn around the necks of some. Erend wore one concealed beneath the edge of his armour. Though she couldn't remember if his sister had been wearing one.

"You think they were working for Oseram then?"

"Likely possibility," Nil said, not entirely convinced from the sounds of it. They'd found the mercenaries in the south and in the east. Not the expected directions of an Oseram invasion. They were also using a mix of Tenakth labour, which weren't traditionally two tribes that mingled well. Whoever they were, they were looking for something. That much was very clear; they also didn't want anyone to be aware of what that was just yet.

None of this was good news. The Nora and the Oseram were _allies._ Not necessarily _close_ allies, but they'd long ago reached an understanding to respect the Nora territories. They left them alone and in turn were left alone. Truly, they'd always had enough issues with the Carja to wonder or worry about Nora affairs. 

"It could be a single clan, or even a single individual?" Dervahl sprang to Aloy's mind. How a single man could rise to such power that he'd threaten to topple nations but Nil was unconvinced.

"Or it could be all of them. Mercenaries like that aren't cheaply bought. The explosives they were using I've never _seen_ before and I'd thought I'd seen them all." The way Nil spoke put her on guard. He wasn't exactly the most cautious of men - in actuality he enjoyed rushing headfirst into danger at every turn, but he spoke now with a great deal of measure and care. 

If he was concerned about this, it was definitely concern worthy.

And in that instant Aloy knew what it was she was going to need to do - where she would need to go for answers. Knew that it would mean leaving her people behind again. Leaving them to the mercy of whatever this new threat was.

"I need to leave, don't I," she said quietly.

"Yes," Nil said solemnly. There was a quiet knowing in his voice. Something resolute. Aloy could feel his thumb begin absently stroking her cheek. She couldn't tell if he was comforting her or himself. "You'll need to speak with the Sun-King - with his Vanguard. See if he can arrange a meeting with the ealdormen. Approach your suspicions from a protected place of strength. Avad owes you, yes?" he said. His tone hard.

Aloy didn't want to think about that. She hadn't left Meridian on good terms. A part of her knew this would be like walking back into the cage. And from the look she read on Nil's face, she knew she would be going alone. That this was where they would part.

"You won't be coming with me?"

 _"No,"_ he said with sharpness in his voice _._ "Two hunters should never step into the same trap, Aloy." he told her and the sound of her name on his lips sent chills up her spine, even as the impact of those words finally began registering and she felt moisture gather in her eyes.

"Where will you go?"

"Wherever the hunting is plentiful," he said and she knew he was only half teasing her. "Perhaps I'll take another trip south, and see if I can drive a few more rats from their holes in the Nora hills."

Aloy jerked in his arms and despite the pain she managed to sit up and turn to face him.

"You would _stay?_ In the ice and the cold? _Why?"_

"Maybe the ice and the cold have grown on me?"

 _"Liar,_ you hate the cold _."_

Nil straightened, looking moderately uncomfortable.

"If I'm here, you'll worry less _,"_ he finally said, his voice soft _._

And Aloy didn't think she could ever find the words to thank him. Didn't have the words to express how much she loved him. She... didn't know what to say. Instead, she threw her arms around his neck, biting down against the pain. She didn't care. The feel of his hands sliding around and up her back. His breath on her throat.

He would stay. He would stay and defend the Nora homeland in her stead. They would be parted, yes, but it would be her going back to the Carja desert while he roamed the Embrace, defending it's borders. 

"You don't have to stay." Aloy looked at him seriously. He owed her and the Nora nothing. 

"Yes, but I've grown so _fond_ of the boar stews," he joked.

"They aren't that good," Aloy said, climbing to her knees.

"Better than yours, huntress," he said with a very Nil smirk.

Aloy laughed. She couldn't help it. It hurt her in places that had never felt pain before but she couldn't stop herself. She eventually regained control over herself and with a moments consideration, she removed something small and wrapped in skins from a pouch at her belt. Carefully she unwrapped her spare focus and set it against his ear.

"You can speak to me through this. No matter how far the distance," she said, watching the way his eyes moved and narrowed. Knowing that all of a sudden his vision was likely being filled with all manner of information and holograms. Recordings. Datagrams. 

"A part of me wants to call you a cheater," he snorted taking a second to acclimate. "But I'm not sure I'd be able to follow this much information. Everything labelled."

He reached out and touched her face again in confusion.

"Elisabet Sobek..." he muttered under his breath. The focus network registry still identified her as the doctor. Nil tapped the device as he'd seen her do a thousand times and sighed in relief to be greeted by the normal world. "Your All-Mother reincarnated a great warrior, if a thousand years later the machines still remember and fear her name," he said, cracking a wicked smile at her.

Aloy was going to argue. Elisabet hadn't been a warrior - not in the sense Nil was thinking. But in the end, he wasn't entirely wrong.

"Maybe some day I'll live up to her memory."

"You already have," he said with an intensity that made her feel strange - made her stomach do flips. 

"Then why do I feel like I've already failed?" she asked him.

For a moment he grew silent, holding her tight to his chest. 

"Because we still have so much to do." And Nil leaned away, tipped her chin up and brushed her lips with his. 

And Aloy felt the sting of the stitch expertly tied in her cut lip and nodded.

_We._


	18. Chapter 18

When Aloy reached out to him Nil had been squatting in the snow, following the tracks of a large boar. In the last few weeks their numbers had been thinning as the weather worsened and temperature dropped steadily. Now they foraged further and further from the usual routes, and Nil was forced to follow them, in some cases even into the old ruins of Devil's Thirst. A place the Nora hunter's would never venture - a place they weren't permitted to enter. 

When there had been no more sightings of mercenaries in Nora lands - when the patrols had grown repetitive and uneventful, Nil had switched to hunting for game instead. It had been a whole day spent tracking this one, but he'd gotten close; almost close enough to catch it's scent on the bitter wind when the sound crackled in his ear and his hand instinctively went to his knife before he was able to piece together that her voice was coming through over the device.

 _"Busy?"_ Aloy purred in his ear and Nil felt his stomach twist with a now familiar longing at the sound.

 _"Bored,_ huntress," he growled quietly.

" _Me too, there's some sort of sun festival. And apparently no one sees the King for about a week. So I'm stuck here as Erend asks incessant questions and tries to get me out celebrating."_

 _"_ His wife must be delighted," Nil snorted, remembering the man with ambivalence. Carja, Oseram, it didn't matter. A husband drunk all the time never made any one happy.

" _Oh -"_ Aloy laughed in his ear _. "Oh, that's a long funny story."_

"I look forward to it," Nil whispered imagining the lines crinkling around her eyes as she laughed. The warmth in her smile. He could almost sense the alertness in her breath when she heard his arrow fly. He was no longer interested in his kill.

"Has your return caused any trouble?"

" _Yeah, I'm expecting to be put in cuffs any time now_ ," she joked before sighing. " _I'll know tomorrow_ ," Aloy said seriously. " _When I see him."_

Yes, the festival was a time of peace and festivities. No judgements or meetings with Carja leaders until it passed. After this week, the days would be noticeably darker- the passage into winter. So Carja celebrated the summer gone. In the hopes that like the rising and setting of the sun, they would see it again.

Nil felt a momentary stab of panic at the thought that his greatest rival for Aloy's affections was an actual King. But not his King. 

"I'll come for you if that happens," he said with a growl; more than a little defensive now. A tone that promised blood and death and carnage to any force that stepped into his path. And Nil meant it.

" _Both terrifying,_ and _comforting._ "

"Do _you_ not find the terror of our enemies a comfort?" he laughed.

But she was silent for a long moment. Thoughtful and pensive.

_"I count a lot of people in this city as friend. I'm really hoping it doesn't come to that."_

The apprehension in her voice now made Nil want for nothing more than to reach out and take her in his arms.

"In Meridian, you are as beloved as the fire itself in datkness." he said instead.

" _That's almost nice, Nil_." she chuckled, before drawing in a long breath. _"I'll call again. I-I missed your voice_."

The admittance made him unexpectedly emotional and his mouth went suddenly dry.

"I look forward to it," he breathed. Nil was positive she was safe. She'd made a lot of allies in the sun kingdom to end up in a prison for what many were already viewing as her sacred duty - he was among them if he were honest. But Nil also knew how Carja politics worked. He knew how there were still those in prominent positions that believed slavery not just to be right, but the proper order when dealing with _savages._ Prison for spurning the Sun-King's hospitality and reward, were not the worst fates for an outlander in Meridian. Even one with a reputation like Aloy's. 

And King's, however benevolent they began, always ended up twisted by their own power.

Did Avad think he was the _first_ Carja King to ban slavery?

For the first time, Nil anxiously anticipated nightfall an the chance to rest. His face was frozen - beard and eyebrows stiff with frost and he longed for the fire and sleep. Putting aside his bow and tying the legs of the boar together for easier transport, he hauled it out of the snow and began the long trek back. On his own he would have gutted it; lightening the load, but the Nora used every part of the animal. _Everything._ Organs, intestine. Bone. Even the hooves. Nothing went to waste.

" _Stay and contribute, or go_!" Was what he'd been told. But Nil was happy enough either way, it was nothing he wouldn't otherwise do and he'd leaveway to hunt on Nora lands. There were few Carja that could boast the same.

The weight of the boar slung across his shoulders made the walk back to the village exhausting. Nil's shoulders ached and his legs felt like heavy logs pushing through the snow. By the time he made it close enough to see the flickering firelight, he was exhausted beyond all recollection. The cold sapped almost everything from him.

"Outlander! Wait," a girls voice called him and Nil groaned silently.

There was nothing that established the feel of 'other' quite like the title of outlander. It was his reminder that no matter how he blended in, they would never forget that he was from Carja.

Nil didn't slow - partially afraid that his body would give up entirely and he'd keel over in the snow if he completely stopped. But he did turn toward the sound of the voice, acknowledging them. The crunch beneath their boots increased in tempo as they began to catch up to him. They moved faster than him through the powder.

"What do you want, girl?" he said, sensing her close enough now to hear him.

"The High Matriarch told me to come to you for extra training."

"Go to Varl, I showed him all I know with a knife and he's as good, if not better with a bow."

"That's not the training I need," she said and instantly the hairs on Nil's arms were standing on end. He stopped dead in his tracks. The boar forcing him to hunch painfully. "I'm a healer....or I was training to be one before. And Lansra said you could help..."

Nil looked away and began walking at a much quicker pace than before. Old woman or not, he was envisioning the look on the High Matriarch's face if he put an arrow in her heart at close range. She was rapidly approaching the limits on what he would tolerate.

"Go home, girl," he barked.

"I'm the only healer left in the Nora. Until I'm trained, they'll keep pestering _you,"_ she said in a sing song voice.

"Why would you want to be a healer, girl?" Nil spat. "All things die. And the lives saved today are just spent tomorrow.

He hadn't realized just how much venom it evoked in him.

"What you're really asking me, is what a day is worth," she countered. "What would a day with those you love be worth to you, outlander?"

Nil looked up to the darkening sky, knowing that she was right. Knowing that what there was nothing he wouldn't give for Aloy. No suffering he wouldn't endure for a minute more of life with her. 

Nil stared hard at the young girl. He hated the sensation of being cornered. To be boxed into a course of action that you rejected on such a base level was almost intolerable. But the girl made a valid point. He knew when he was beaten.

"Find me at first light then, girl."

"My name is Fia, not _girl."_ She narrowed her eyes at him.

Nil had forgotten for a moment that all the women in the Nora were like Aloy in that regard; healer or hunter, they all had tongues sharper than flint. 

"Yes - yes," he grumbled under an exhausted breath.

The moon was climbing across the sky when Nil returned, depositing the boar with the Nora by the campfire and retreated to a bedroll. His back popped audibly when he straightened it and while he might have only been twenty-four, he honestly felt fifty as he lumbered away. Too anxious to eat with the others and hoping to avoid any more conversations he slipped silently to his bedroll, hidden away in a corner of the stone hut outside with the Nora outcasts that had been allowed to return. A child had managed to talk him into enough; who knew what he could be talked into tonight.

And then he heard her again. A welcome but unexpected surprise 

_"Busy?"_

"Catch me in the middle of a fight to the death and my answer would still be 'never for you, huntress," Nil smiled. And before his eyes this time he saw an image of her appear. She'd swapped her Nora leathers for some lighter Carja silks and Nil swallowed at the sight of her exposed abdomen. He regretted not going now. She wore those silks so damn well. "I didn't expect to hear from you so soon," he asked. "Is everything alright?"

" _I'd something of a run in with some nobles._ _It's funny how short their memories are. Wasn't so long ago that an army marched in the from the west, but suddenly **now** I'm exaggerating,_" she huffed in exasperation. " _But nothing I couldn't handle,"_

Nil felt a vice in his chest clench just that little harder when he noticed that one side of her face was beginning to swell. He forced himself not to mention it. If Aloy wished to speak about it she would bring it up it to him.

"Are you staying at the Palace?"

" _No, I have a room at the Hunters Lodge, I'm a Hawk there you know_ ," he heard the smugness in her tone. It was no small feat to rise to such a position in the Lodge. It was totally unheard of for someone that wasn't Carja. Aloy hadn't had to wait for her sponsors death like most, either, as they'd risen to the title of sunhawk and Aloy automatically earned their old place.

"I'd heard." He said with nothing short of pride.

She wasn't staying in the Palace with the Carja guests. The 'incident' was not as trivial as she'd made out; likely she'd not grovelled to the Carja nobility like they'd expected. Aloy was not impressed by wealth and power. Others saw Avad and felt envy, and Aloy felt only confusion knowing that there were people outside the palace fighting to scrape out an existence while others sat on golden thrones with more than they could ever need. The Nora were a communal tribe; wealth was a strange and foreign concept. To have more - to _take_ more than you needed was considered an affront to their goddess. 

" _Your beard has grown_ ," she changed the subject again and Nil's hands went immediately to his chin.

"I look forward to a time when I can shave this monstrosity and not risk frostbite," he chuckled. 

_"I almost miss the cold_ ," Aloy said longingly. " _Warming up is far easier than cooling down. I can't believe it's still so hot during the day when the nights are freezing."_

Nil felt a sudden peculiar longing for his homeland. For the red desert rocks, and the rivers and the jungle air. For the smells and feel of it. 

"I would _happily_ warm you," he smirked at her and even through the hologram he saw her bite her lip. Imagining the likely flush across her cheeks. 

Nil watched, transfixed by her fingers as she brushed the hair behind her ears; having undone some of her braids. She was beautiful. And he counted himself among the luckiest men in the world that she'd chosen to share so much with him when all she'd need to do is walk into the palace in Meridian, demand Avad climb to his knees and she could be a Queen.

"Do you know a healer named Fia?" Nil asked her. 

_"Yes_ \- " Aloy said quickly. Nil could see the worry on her face. " _Why, is she okay_?" Nil held up his hands in apology. He hadn't intended to make Aloy fear for the girl like that.

"Physically, yes, she's well. I can't comment on the rest."

Deranged. Her and that High Matriarch, both.


	19. Chapter 19

The city was quiet now that the celebrations had passed. Carja who'd spent the last six days drinking and singing and falling about Meridian would now be trying to piece themselves back together; their brains feeling like clotted cheese. Erend would finally be sober, too. Aloy hadn't been quite sure that what they'd discussed had made it through the mugs of scrappersap intact, and she looked forward to a coherent conversation with him. Though, she lamented the complaining. Avad should make it law that if you're going to drink yourself into oblivion, you forgo the right to complain about it after. The swelling on her jaw had gone down by the morning but Aloy was almost disappointed she didn't have something on her face to distract the onlookers - or give them something to actually look at. She could feel them as they followed her through the city.

And she _hated_ it. Hated so many eyes on her. The whispers and the mutterings as she passed. Some glanced at her in awe. Others with suspicion. Aloy didn't appreciate either. They wore greedy faces. All of them would use her. Would take something from her. Wanted her to do something for them. 

A line of men in jewels and shimmering silks bowed to her as she passed into the palace, all of them waiting to see Avad now that the Palace had reopened. She stifled a chuckle, guessing that even _Kings_ need vacations once and a while. Marad led her in front while the petitioners nodded with snapmaw smiles. The same faces that would hollar and cheer if she were to be thrown into the sun ring to fight for her life.

Avad was dressed in his usual red and gold; long flowing fabrics and oversized headpiece that Aloy often wondered how it remained in place. Nil's wasn't near as big, but she knew the weight of it. It didn't move ao.much as an inch when he stood to greet her. Standing from his chair so sharply at the sight that he nudged the table at his knees and it slid a noisy inch across the stone making Marad smile.

"It's good to see you again, Aloy."

He extended his hands to her and with a polite smile Aloy came forward and allowed him to guide her to sit. The enormous plush cushion under her rear was far too soft and she felt herself shifting in her seat, sliding on the silk.

"I wish the circumstances were better."

His smile wavered for just an instant but he shook it off.

"I find it hard to bemoan _any_ situation which brings you to Meridian." 

Aloy wanted nothing more than to relax, after all she wasn't about to be arrested - Avad didn't seem angry but...the way he looked at her; like so many of the others outside. Hopeful and _hungry._

"I'm sorry I left so suddenly after the battle," she said with a tired sigh. "I didn't want to offend you, but it wasn't safe."

If truth be told, Hades was only the jagged tip of what was fast becoming a very long blade.

"No harm would _ever_ befall you in my city, Aloy," Avad said, and she picked up the sudden briskness in his tone. Avad was a good natured man, but it was clear that had been very close to offense. Aloy almost touched her cheek and the bruise growing there from her run in the day before. It wasn't exactly as safe as he'd would like.

"I wasn't worried about myself," Aloy said hoping to placate him. "The ones responsible for raising and unleashing Hades were still out there. And now it seems I've barely dealt with Eclipse and there's suddenly a new threat."

She explained to him about the mercenaries they'd found and killed on Nora lands - found snooping underground near dangerous ruins.

The Sun King became suddenly tense and Aloy could see memories of smoke and deathbringers in his eyes. A tidelwave of destruction and machines marching from the West, cutting through the mountains like a hot blade. 

_"More_ machines?"

"Not yet. Just people for the minute - people carrying Oseram clan tokens." Aloy handed him the small medallion from the pouch at her waist.

Avad flipped it between his fingers, eyes fixed on the strange stamp on the coin.

"I know of these. I was provided with one for passage through the Claim. But I don't recognize this mark."

"Erend didn't, either," Aloy said, before she frowned suddenly. Realising that its possible Erend may not have been seeing straight. "That's why I need to speak to the Oseram ealdormen. Nothing happens from what I hear without their involvement."

"Yes - yes, I will reach out to the Claim, but there will be a problem," Avad said and she could see from the look on his face that it would be nothing she'd like. "The Oseram leaders generally don't speak with women."

"Great." Aloy grumbled under her breath, sitting back as far as was comfortable. "I'm sure their wives are delighted," she snickered and was reassured a moment when Avad laughed with her.

"Please, let me help you with this. I can speak to them on your behalf."

"A Carja King speaking on behalf of the _Nora_ tribe. I'm not sure the Matriarch's would be happy about that."

"And a King speaking on behalf of his Queen's people?"

Aloy frowned, her fears made manifest. From the moment she'd heard he'd sent supplies to the Nora.

"The last time you raised this subject, Avad, it wasn't me you were really interested in."

She looked down, blinking somewhat stupidly as he took her hand in his. His fingers were soft and warm. No callouses or scars. Aloy had only ever seen skin so unmarred on infants, not even on Nora children who would spend their days climbing and playing in the forests. 

"I've thought of _nothing_ but you since. And there is not a soul in Carja that would protest it. The people -the _priests_ even sing your praises; a gift from the sun. When you meet with the Oseram, you could speak to them with _my_ voice," he offered tentatively, his eyes rising to hers. "The Kingdom of Sun standing behind you."

She would be lying if she said that there wasn't a flicker of fantastical interest. How easy it would be to deal with the Oseram with that kind of power at her fingertips. And as men went, Avad was handsome. Aloy knew every night she would go to sleep on pressed silk. Be waited on by servants. Never know a day of hunger. It was so alien to her; how could she not be intrigued by that? 

But that was the allure of cages. Those beautiful, expensive gold necklaces and bangles would become her shackles. The city and title; her cell. Meridian - a city she genuinely loved - would become nothing more than a prison and Aloy would grow to despise it.

 _"Avad,"_ Aloy said sadly. "I'm really _not_ wife material." It wasn't a lie. The Nora didn't marry, either. Every day with your partner was a choice. Actively and continuously made. 

"You could be," he said hopefully.

Aloy laughed nervously.

"I have far too much to do to sit around being flattered by Carja nobles who hate me," she said with a smile; turning to look at him fully she could see his eyes scanning her jaw. Avad was not a fool. He saw the bruise.

"And there is no one else who could shoulder the responsibility? No one else that could take up your spear?" he asked.

"This is why I was born. What _I_ was born to do."

"And _him?"_ Avad asked and Aloy felt the sudden wintery chill in his voice. The naked jealousy bubbling beneath the surface. 

She withdrew her hand from his quickly.

"Questions like that make me less regretful," she said coolly.

Obviously word had reached him about Nil. The man she travelled with. The one she'd come to claim from the Carja outpost. 

The one Avad would have had shipped to Meridian and executed had she not made it down that mountain. A spark of anger flickered in her chest and Aloy swallowed hard to keep it there. 

"I'm only concerned for you. That one is a killer - remorseless. He would cut your throat while you slept and a world that needs you would find itself lost," he said, and while he sounded sincere, in the end all Aloy heard were the words 'need', 'killer'... 'lost'. And instantly Nil's face was all she could see in her mind. An aching in her heart for him.

"That one, " she slowly said, her jaw clenched tight, "- has saved me more times than I can count."

"So you would trust him with your life?"

"I've entrusted him with my _people,"_ Aloy said, tilting her chin up, daring Avad to say anything more, but the King shrank back in on himself. Deflated and defeated. 

"I would give much to rise so high in your esteem," he finally said and she could see the sadness in his eyes.

"You deserve someone who actually _loves_ you, Avad."

She watched him frown and tear his gaze away from her. This was the last time he would make such an offer. Aloy knew it in her bones.

The King straightened himself and like the setting of the sun, the melancholy faded from his expression. A skill he'd likely long practiced.

"Marad." Avad called out and the Carja spymaster came forward from the shadows and lowered his head in deference.

"Your Highness?"

"Would you see to it that the guest suite is prepared for Aloy?"

"No, it's okay, I've a room at the lodge..." She started to object but Avad held up his hand for her to be silent.

"No excuses this time. You at _least_ owe me that."

Aloy wanted to tell him she owed him nothing. Not her presence. Not her affection. But she remained quiet. She would step into the cage and let him close the door behind her, and hope he didn't attempt to turn the key in the lock.

Aloy let herself be led away through the palaces maze of yellow stone and gold lattice doors to a room almost as big as the bottom floor of the Hunters Lodge. Rich carpets and tapestries covering every surface. A bed large enough for ten people at it's center and a bath of gold overlooking a balcony with such a glittering view of the maize-land that for a long moment Aloy didn't breathe. If there was a god to believe in, in these lands, it was easy to see why they worshipped the sun.

"I'm surprised the Sun King himself isn't spread out naked and oiled in the middle of _that."_

Aloy jumped at the sound of Erend's voice as he hovered over her shoulder, gazing into the room frowning but as his words registered she snorted, before beckoning him inside and closing the door to the room quickly. 

"Me too, if I'm honest," she said with a snicker, back pressed against the gold. "But I really don't like disappointing him."

"Trust me, he'll be fine. He spent enough years making impossible goo-goo eyes at my sister."

"That doesn't make me feel better, you know." Aloy said. 

"He's a _King,"_ Erend waved her concerns off. "A little rejection is good for his spirit. He needs people like us to keep him humble." A grin spread across his face. _"So,_ how is your murderer, anyway?"

"Putting his murdering to good use I expect," Aloy said, before changing topics. "Were you able to find out anything more on the token? Avad was heavily hinting they wouldn't speak to me."

"Not entirely true. You're Nora, not Carja or Oseram; they've negotiated with your High Matriarch's before." His was suddenly the voice of reason and Aloy sucked in a quiet breath; feeling herself relax slightly.

"Yes, well I don't like having to resort to otherwise unnecessary violence," she laughed but Erend's smile was watery. He knew that she wasn't entirely joking. They would speak with her; seated at the talks table or at the end of a spear.

"How's your face?"

"It's fine. Fists are softer than steel."

She'd somehow found herself in an argument with a drunk noble only for his personal guard to sucker-punch her. Aloy walked passed the bed and out onto the balcony, rolling out her bedroll in the open air.

"You can take the girl out of the Nora," Erend laughed before sighing. "So when do you plan your next big escape from the city?" He plucked an orange from one of the baskets of fruit on her side table, rolling it around absently in his palm.

"First light," Aloy said, turning with a grin.

There was a piece of Gaia locked away in a bunker on the other side of the desert that she needed to see too before then.

"And I'm guessing you want me to make your excuses again?" he said with narrowed eyes. Covering her escapes was becoming a second profession.

Aloy gave him a sheepish glance over her shoulder.

"Don't worry I'll be back by the time the Oseram arrive."

Erend looked at her seriously for a moment.

"And what makes you think they're coming here?"

"The Nora and Carja both signed the same treaty with them. If they think the Carja suspect them of sending mercenaries onto Nora lands, they'll come here to defend themselves." Aloy smirked at him. "Marad would guess anything they're doing might be to facilitate a move against the Carja."

Erend looked at her as if it were the first time he was seeing her.

"And when exactly did you get so suspicious?"

Aloy laughed before draping herself on the wall of the balcony, gazing down into the farmland below. 

"Trust is a rare egg.." she told him with a soft smile.


	20. Chapter 20

Fia was only fifteen years old. Recently orphaned. Her last surviving relative - the last fully trained healer the Nora had - dead only three months past to a fever. And enough in common with Nil to make him actually question a lot of the things he'd come to believe about himself. He'd never been one to make excuses - he was what he was and had done what he'd done - but something inside him had clearly believed that being left without parents or family at such a pivotal age had certainly played a part in it. Nil had believed he were incapable of caring but suddenly he knew he didn't want her to become like him - was glad that she was Nora and wouldn't fall prey to his fate.

He'd _known_ she was young - he wasn't blind - but he hadn't fully prepared himself to face the reality of just _how_ young, just before he'd been slapped in the face with it; that the last surviving Nora healer had been a fifteen year old, orphaned girl. She'd survived the Eclipse assault, only because she'd seen the distant fires from Mother's Rise and had practically run to the sacred mountain. Fia had never had much of any formal training, and although she could relocate shoulders and knees and fingers, cure fevers and mix herbs as well as any healer twice her age she recoiled at the sight - at the _smell_ even of blood. She couldn't stitch a wound. Knew little of Human anatomy.

She held the needle between shaking fingers biting down, her lips trembling. Nil huffed, crossing his arms. The Nora currently waiting for her to stitch the deep gash in his arm was in much better mood and when his locked eyes with Nil, who shrugged, he laughed sympathetically. He understood she was learning. He understood _why_ it was important she learn all she could - even if it was from an outlander - a killer like him.

"You should probably _start_ before he bleeds to death and Lansra has me flogged for your failing," Nil said briskly, noting the sudden panic in her eyes.

He activated his focus and carefully scrolled to the biological scan setting - a setting he'd stumbled on accidentally. It seemed as old ones tech went his was a later model than Aloy's. It was especially useful seeing as he was now responsible for teaching someone how to do all of this - skills he hadn't practiced since he left the Sun- King's army. His memory was as dull as a rusty blade and the medical texts - the scans he could now access were invaluable. 

He'd had Fia practice her stitching and wound care on boar carcasses first. Repeat the careful loops until she could do it with her eyes closed - until her sutures were as good as his, but although she knew what to do, no matter what way it was approached, she had little tolerance for blood.

Her hands hovered over the edge of the cut and as she moved to insert the needle, Nil audibly clucked.

"It's _deep,"_ he reminded her. She would need one or two stitches further in before she thought to put the needle to skin amd close the wound.

Her breath began to come in shaky gulps. She reached into the wound with shaking fingers and recoiled as more blood oozed up.

"I'm really sorry about this," Fia apologized to the patient who seemed more amused than irritated.

"Don't worry, girl. I'd have put a red coal to it if my better half hadn't chased me here from Mother's Crown," he said with a chuckle.

Nil pursed his lips and refrained from saying anything more about it. She would need to learn, and that would mean finding some way to move passed this.

With a breath she rinsed the wound out once more and pressed the point of the needle into flesh. 

And the Nora screamed, jerking in his seat with a string of thundering curses that actually made Nil burst out laughing. Fia jumped back still holding the needle, mouth gaping like a fish as the patient gasped through the pain.

Taking pity on her Nil took the needle stepping around her.

"We're done for today. You know what you did?"

"I hit a nerve." she said weakly.

"Yes. Though technically you _stabbed_ a nerve." He looked to Nora man and gestured for him to sit. "Remember where those are, always. Know what they look like." Nil understood how useful it was to know where would cause the most pain. It was strange how often healer and monster walked the same path of knowledge.

"How does it feel?" he asked the Nora Brave.

"My palm is numb," the man rasped, gripping his wrist with his free hand. There was fear in his voice. 

"Move your fingers." Nil told him and he wiggled them cautiously. "You'll be fine. The numbness will likely pass in a few weeks if you avoid infection."

He felt her hover over him as he cleaned and stitched the wound himself. Slowing his movements so she could see them more clearly. 

"It's normally men who are squeamish about blood." Nil carefully set his first stitch. "Girls see it far more often, yes?"

She frowned at him silently, her lips pulling into a tight line that told Nil there was clearly more to it than that. 

The next life he ended he would need to acquaint her with the anatomy of the corpse. Show her what she was looking at on something that didn't feel pain and wouldn't move.

"Apply the salve and bandage it," he told her, not bothering to stay and hear the man's thanks. Nil had no illusions about it. He was tolerated while he was of use. The injured man would very likely put a spear to his throat the moment that ceased to be the case.

Outside, Mothers Watch was growing busy again. Dozens of hunters and braves bustling about. Children were playing. The High Matriarch's decision to welcome back the outcasts in the hills had gone out like a cry across the lands and suddenly there were Nora returning from everywhere. Drawn by their people's need and their own longing to come home - their hope that miraculously they might be welcomed back.

Nil had honestly no idea there were so many out in the world. Some were roaming hunters, chasing bigger and bigger game, others had gone simply to explore the vast lands beyond the embrace - to learn what the matriarchs could not teach. 

Overnight it seemed there was suddenly too many for Mother's Watch or Mother's Crown to hold and there were friendly fires once more lighting the darkness in Mother's Heart. Sona had now no reason to complain as her ranks swelled with new - no, _old_ Braves. But to Nil, the most pleasing part was how much Aloy would approve. How happy it would make her to see her people thriving again. See those who'd been lost find their way back. Even amidst the deepest, most bone shaking cold Nil had ever experienced, the Nora didn't simply survive, they prospered.

"Outlander, a moment please?"

They still only referred to him as outlander, but when Teersa spoke it, it was with less venom and an almost casual affection. An endearing title one might give a wayward pet that continually insisted on urination indoors. 

He looked down at his hands; they were still caked in drying blood. He'd been flogged when he was seventeen for greeting a Carja commander with stained hands. The memory of those lashes followed him even now and he rubbed his palms on his furs in the hopes of cleaning them.

Nil followed Teersa into the darkness of the Mountain as she lead him to a small room lit by candlelight and gestured for him to sit before handing him a cup of steaming tea. 

"There are soldiers coming from the Sun-King. They claim to be dignitaries, but Sona accompanies them and when she tells me they are soldiers and not diplomats, I believe her."

"And what do they want?"

Nil had never known any Carja to march beyond their own borders in Winter. They knew their own limitations. And when your troops came from warmer climates and you marched them into snow, the casualties were usually far greater.

"A question I've asked myself repeatedly. They _say_ they will to discuss our treaty with Carja but I don't believe them." Teersa said with a growl. "Jezza and Lansra are at odds that we should have ever permitted them across the borders. We've suffered and lost so much already, but if this is a trap, Mother's will, I would rather know it - see the wire that would snare me and know it's hand. Oseram - Carja you know how they both operate."

Not for the first time, Nil agreed with her. Avoiding traps of course in some instances was prudent, but there was nothing like the thrill of springing a trap prematurely and watching your attacker panic as they caught nothing but air.

"How many are with them?"

"A party of about fifteen in total."

"But not Erend?"

"No, the Oseram Vanguard is not with them."

"If the Nora were at full strength, fifteen wouldn't be enough to take Mother Watch." Nil narrowed his eyes. "Unless they already knew how weak the borders are."

"Not so weak now."

"But most of the Nora that returned didn't pass through Carja gates. So _they_ wouldn't know that." Aloy was the only Nora that Nil knew of that bothered with the Carja checkpoints at all. Or roads for that matter. Most Nora took to the hills; they went over mountains instead of around.

The High Matriarch seemed to look through him. As though she could see the future written in the dark stone of the mountain.

"First Oseram, and now we may have Carja to contend with," she whispered. 

Nil sat back, leaning against the wall thinking. It could be that after hearing Aloy's story the King sent reinforcements to aid them - he'd already sent supplies once. But we're that the case they'd have said so at the border. Like Teersa he trusted that Sona knew the difference between a soldier and a diplomat. She had eyes like a glinthawk.

"How long before they reach us?" 

"Tomorrow. Sona sent Varl ahead to tell us that the snow is giving them trouble and they've camped near Mother's Rise."

Nil was imagining Sona's frustration at having to stop. She would likely be furious at the pace.

"If they think the Nora are weak, I see no reason to correct them just yet. At least until we know why they're here." Nil took a sip of the tea and did his best not to make a face. It tasted like she'd gathered stray leaves from the ground and boiled them in stagnant water.

Teersa laughed at the expression of disgust Nil couldn't entirely hide before she nodded sagely. 

"I'll send word and ensure there are no fires in Mother's Heart until they're gone. I'll make sure the new arrivals stay out of sight. Kept our visible numbers down."

Nil didn't need to hear those words to be reminded of why the Nora had lasted as long under beneath the care of these women. They were assuredly no fools. Superstitious, definitely, but they weren't going to walk into any beasts mouth blindfolded like sheep.

"I'll go with them but I'll be close if you need me. A dozen or so is no trouble. It's not often the prey come to _me,"_ he smiled toothily at her and was surprised by an answering grin.

"I would rather you be here to listen to what they have to say."

Nil sat a little straighter. He knew that he was noticeable - was a man with a reputation. 

"They may not be quite so chatty in front of me. Mine is a face that tends to wither most Carja tongues," he said.

And then she did something Nil didn't expect.

Teersa plucked up a bowl - it took Nil a moment to realise that it wasn't boar stew sloshing in the bottom - and she dipped her fingers in the blue paste holding them up for him to see. He recoiled, physically at the thought of what she was intending to do and she smiled comfortingly. 

"Don't worry, it isn't permanent and it doesn't mean anything."

"I'm not sure the others would agree."

Nil knew what they went through to earn those marks. He wasn't Nora and had no business walking around wearing something like that.

Teersa's face hardened.

"Before she left, Aloy told me that this is where the All-Mother will wake. That when her task as anointed is fullfilled, the All-Mother will wake in this place and begin restoring the world." The old woman straightened her shoulders. "These lands must be protected by _any_ and all means. Our traditions mean nothing if we fail. They will die along with us." She looked him square in the eye. "Aloy trusts you. And I trust in our Anointed."

Nil became incredibly still thinking of that, so lost in thought he almost wasn't present as she painted his face with the Nora markings; a dye they apply to their skin continuously for weeks at a time until the blue was a permanent fixture on their faces. His would likely be gone within the week.

"All us _savages_ look the same to Carja anyway, yes?" Teersa asked smiling at her handiwork.

But another possibility occurred to Nil. A small party of soldiers with a cover good enough to take them right into the heart of the Nora tribe. Eclipse was gone. But the Shadow Carja still existed in parts. 

"We need to consider that this might also be an attempt at assassination."

It wouldn't be the first time that Carja had ever employed them. A tactic picked up from the Oseram who didn't like waste - not the waste of scrap, not the waste of soldiers. And with no one to lead them, a weakened Nora would likely crumble without the High Matriarch's.

"You're concerned that they would try and kill us three? Turn up under the banner of peace and _kill_ us?"

Nil didn't see her other hand move. Barely recognized the glint of the blade in firelight before he felt the edge of steel against his throat. A small pairing knife likely used for roots and vegetables. Hidden somewhere on her robes.

"These bones may be old; my climbing days are long behind me, but it would be foolish to think the High Matriarch's are easy targets." She tilted his chin up with the blade and smiled in that grandmotherly way of hers. An altogether deeply unsettling combination. "All three of us were braves once, don't forget that."

And Nil laughed; the sound ringing through the mountain, her blade still at his throat. 

"I wouldn't dream of it."


	21. Chapter 21

The dirt parted and Aloy punched her fist up through the dust and coarse grass. Broken nails fighting for purchase as her head came up next; her lungs burning for air as she gasped and coughed, clawing her way up through the earth. Sprouting from the dry, cracked soil with a cry of pain and frustration - of relief; her left arm throbbing as she clutched it tight to her chest, rolling onto her back and heaving. Minutes ago she'd been certain she was going to die. Trapped beneath a mountain of rubble not knowing if she would ever see the sky again. Only her her focus to guide her. She stared up at the stars for a long moment wondering where she'd come out - where she was. The bunker door down into the darkness was no where in sight - the maze of corridors had caved in behind her forcing her to find another way to the surface - and in the darkness, disorientated and fatigued, she didn't recognize the line of mountains framing the moon. Dizzy she lay there trying to make sense of the fact that she was alive. She'd lost track of both time and her senses down in the dark. 

Most of the infrastructure below was now gone; the last cave in had left her crawling through spaces so tight she couldn't draw a full breath; delving underground would never appeal to her. The feeling of stone and steel closing down on you - crushing you. Heights she didn't mind. But tight spaces were something else entirely. It had taken her what she could only guess was hours to make it to the data stores below. The only room left intact in the complex. Protected by enormous blast doors and thick walls. It looked like someone or something had intentionally tried to destroy this place. Knowing what it contained, Aloy knew why. 

Her hand involuntarily went to her belt where the data storage device sat wrapped in two thick skins. It was the first part of Gaia's backup and an enormous trove of data if the size it was anything to go by.

The throbbing pain in her arm grew with each passing minute as she lay there and Aloy wondered absently if her lucky streak of injuries had ended; if it _was_ actually broken this time. Having fallen and been trampled by all manner of machines - taken the shaft of a steel spear to the chest- she'd escaped any broken bones to date. But the pain in her arm - Aloy could feel it; this was different. She wiggled her fingers and in the moonlight it certainly _looked_ straight, but she would need a better glance at it in daylight. Yet despite her condition, there still that sense of accomplishment. A feeling that she was finally making progress on an impossible road.

She tapped her focus and scrolled for it's match on the network.

"I have it," she said out loud, before frowning when she realized his was offline and he wouldn't hear her. Aloy sucked in a breath, moving to record a message instead. "If - _when_ you get this, know that I have the first piece. I have it," she laughed. " I have it and I love you."

She smiled at the thought of seeing him again, wondering how long his beard had become or if he'd finally had enough and shaved it off. Aloy missed him. The Embrace would always mean something to her. It held a special place in her heart - her memories. But wherever Nil was, _that_ was her home now.

Aloy closed her eyes and when she opened them again, the dawn was rising, her mouth was dry and her head was pounding. She'd passed out. Pain, exhaustion, she didn't know. She sat up with a stiff painfilled groan. She'd dreamt of him. And the feel of his arms around her still lingered. The softness of his lips. The sound of his voice that wiped even the memory of pain away. In the light of a new day Aloy saw the break in her forearm; the darkening stripe along the swelling skin. The journey back would not be pleasant, but it would still be manageable. When she was confident it was straight, she splinted her arm with some wood and a few stray pieces of leather, climbing to her feet.

It might have been the pain or the maybe the fading exhaustion - the delirium, but it took Aloy longer than it should to realise that something was wrong as she got closer to the gates leading into Meridian. The normal merchants dotted on the roads leading up to the city were missing. The Oseram freebooters that would usually be working were nowhere to be seen.

_"Aloy,"_

Erend's voice called out to her from the roadside and she stopped taking in his more haggard than usual appearance. The dark rings beneath his eyes, the waxen look to his skin. But more than that, it was the fact that the Oseram didn't seem happy to see her that hit her first. He turned to the guards at his side, dismissing them. The glances thrown Aloy's way did not fill her with warm sentiment.

"What's going on?"

"We need to get you out of here," he grit out.

"Well that's definitely not a good sign." Her arm throbbed again. "That bad, huh?"

"That bad. We need to get you away from the city,"

"Erend, what's going on?"

He reached over to take her by the elbow and she flinched at the sharp stab of pain that burned through her. Her arm was on fire. The broadhead bristled beneath her and Erend moved back quickly, only narrowly avoiding it's hind leg as it sidestepped.

"Your arm?" he muttered in shock. Embarrassed he hadn't noticed the splint.

"Yes, yes, it's broken. Tell me what happened." She swung her mount around to face him. The pain in her arm almost made her sick to her stomach.

"Avad was poisoned the night you left," Erend whispered and the full weight of that hit Aloy square in the chest. 

"Is he...?"

"He's alive, but barely."

"And they think _I_ had something to do with this?"

"Marad doesn't, but he had to say - to _do_ something to keep the peace. The nobles have been filing into the city since the Prince returned - more since Eclipse fell. And Avad had been _pardoning_ them. But now there's a city full of ex- shadow Carja, a poisoned King and a handful of senior officials trying to keep the peace."

Aloy didn't need any follow up to that. If Marad began throwing accusations at the Carja nobles he would likely find himself slipping mysteriously and taking a tumble into the aqueduct. And although she lacked motive, it was means and opportunity she had plenty of. The timing of her unceremonious exit was beyond suspicious. Aloy almost didn't mind, she knew while they placed blame at her feet it bought the Avad time to recover.

"What about the Oseram that were due to arrive?"

"No shows. Though whether they got the message or not - I'm doubtful now."

Aloy climbed down carefully. Her arm had been jostled enough.

"Do you think they had any part in this?"

"I'm not sure they'd any part in _any_ of it. That token you showed me? Fake. I checked with a friend in Pitchcliff, the crest doesn't exist. But it was good enough for you to go asking questions in Meridian."

"You think this was a trap?"

"I think Avad is a soft hearted fool who should have taken my advice and put those traitors to the sword when he had the chance."

Aloy ground her teeth imagining all the likely scenarios that would now involve the use of her still very injured arm. There were still so many questions. Who had ultimately sent those mercenaries into the Embrace. Where they the same forces responsible for Avad's poisoning? What was the ultimate goal?

"What do you suggest?" Aloy finally asked, exhaling.

"There's a path the deathbringers blew out of the cliffs should take us around the city. My Vanguard have taken watch on the trail, it but you can't enter Nora lands through Daytower. I've people at Dawn's Sentinel."

Aloy wasn't worried about the treacherous trail from the northern gate. There were plenty of paths though those mountains which would be almost impassible at this stage, even more so with a broken arm. But the Cut was worse she reminded herself. The winds so fierce and cold they could strip the flesh from your bones if the fire died.

Erend passed her a set of Carja leathers and a headpiece that looked remarkably like Nil's. She stared at it blankly. 

"Your hair is pretty noticeable. Even at a distance."

"You know it's Winter," Aloy looked down at the clothing. For Carja it was heavy cloth - thick leather, but where she was going, the route she would have to take, it wasn't nearly good enough. No wonder Carja didn't march in the colder months.

"I don't control the seasons, Aloy. _Don't_ design Carja armour, either," Erend grumbled.

Aloy frowned, realising he was right; dismounting, changing behind her machine, tying up her hair and awkwardly slipping into the shirt and leather Carja pleats. Her broken arm protested every single inch she moved it. Screaming at her as she secured the straps and tightened the strips holding her hair up off her neck. The headpiece was heavy and cumbersome she discovered. And every which way she turned she felt it pull at her. Her neck was aching in moments. But at a glance she was a passable figure of a Carja soldier.

"This way." Erend took her things, slinging the bag over his shoulder, leading her into the brush. For an hour he fought ahead, cutting their way through the plants and vines, before Aloy emerged onto a new dirt path that wound it's way up onto the plateau. She glanced around, and he was right, they'd bypassed Meridian. 

"I've a man at the north gate. He'll be expecting you." His eyes fell on her arm. "Are you going to be okay?"

The swelling had gone down, but it would be useless with a bow for another week at least. Aloy tapped her spear with her good hand. 

"I'll be fine. What about _you?"_ Erend looked at her tiredly. Aloy knew that if Avad died, the first thing a new power in Meridian would do would be put his loyalists to death. Top of that list would be Erend and his Oseram Vanguard.

"If Avad's poisoned wine didn't kill me, I doubt anything will." He laughed but she could now see the lingering sickness in his face. Likely Erend needed a healer and bed rest, but he'd been out here on the road waiting for her instead. Risking his life for her.

Aloy took her bag from him and rummaging around in it, she took out a small bag of black powder and placed it in his palm, crushing his fingers around it.

"If Avad's not dead, chances are they'll try again," Erend glanced down at the bag, barely hearing her. "It'll help bind the poison." She smiled sadly at him, recognizing that this might be the last time she saw him. That either of them might die in the coming days. Their paths - their missions would always lead them in opposite directions. 

"Avad is going to survive." Erend's voice rang with a certainty Aloy wished she could feel. The world beneath her feet felt as though it were crumbling. "Don't worry he'll be proposing marriage again in no time."

Erend clapped her on the shoulder as she began the long walk out of Carja territory. Aloy didn't know these roads very well, but she could feel the proximity to the Nora lands by the chill in the air. The scream of the bitter mountain winds. 

She continued for a day and a half until she could see the snowy peaks of her homeland, creeping up on the north most gates with her head down. Just as Erend had said, there on the road one of his Vanguard waited watching the horizon for her. The instant she was spotted he stood to attention and donned his helmet. Aloy saw him trade quiet words with the other Carja sentinel stationed with him; quick animated whispers before the man saluted and turned away. 

Erend's guard motioned for Aloy to hurry forward and she found herself quickly ushered through the gates. Once on the other side, the man leaned in close to her, handing over a small bag of dried meat and fruit.

"Forty Carja left through these gates a day ago in fur and heavy armour heading for the Embrace. Reports are that a smaller contingent passed through Daytower three days ago."

"An attack?" Aloy asked and her voice rang out louder than intended. Carrying noisily in the silence. She looked around suspiciously but all the Carja had put their back to her. They wouldn't have to lie if asked if they'd seen her 

"I don't know, Nora. Be on your guard."

Carja were possibly heading into Nora lands falsely believing her responsible for poisoning their King. They were sending a smaller party via the commonly used roads while far larger force marched on the lesser known.

Aloy turned toward the Nora mountains, panic on her face.

"The snow will slow them down," she spoke aloud, hoping the words would comfort her. But they were cold and empty. "Whatever it is they're intending on doing, it'll slow them down."

Aloy took off at a run. She didn't know what was happening, but she knew one thing for certain. 

Nil's focus was still offline.


	22. Chapter 22

Nil held his breath as they marched through the gates of Mother's Watch. Sona was right. Though they didn't wear Carja armour or wave weapons about, there was little doubt that they were soldiers. The way they moved in formation. The way they watched everything. Nil saw two at least openly counting the Nora at the gates.

He would have expected that of the three High Matriarch's, one at least would have hidden herself away from danger just in case, but instead they stood out in the open, side by side. A united front despite such differing opinions. Further up the incline Nil knew that a dozen Nora Braves were waiting inside the mountain bunker.

The gates closing behind the Carja visitors were the doors to their tombs should their reason for travel prove hostile. Looking at the soldiers now, he was suddenly positive that was the case - almost eagerly anticipating the fight. Marking the faces of the Carja that would die at his hands.

Then Nil paused, holding in a breath and looking to Teersa, hoping she could read his face. That she would see him step backwards, allowing himself to be swallowed by the other Nora. Two of the men he recognized. One of which he was positive would recognize him. 

"You've travelled far, Outlanders," Jezza said, her spine stiff. "You've come under a banner of peace, but I would ask why you've travelled at all through the Winter storms."

A cloaked figure stepped forward and bowed deeply. The tip of his nose was red with the cold. All of the Carja looked half frozen but he moved without the stiffness they did, and though he wore Carja colours - was flanked by soldiers for the Sun King, this man wasn't Carja. Nil didn't know who he was. 

The cloaked man smiled - the type of serpentine grin that would prelude a nasty, venom filled bite.

"High Matriarch's," He bowed again. A mocking of respect. "My name is Cordan, and I come to you with sad tidings." He placed a gloved hand over his heart, but Nil noticed that though he fought it, the grin never quite left his face. "The Sun King bids me make this trip to convey our sympathies. Your envoy - your machine tamer has fallen."

"When was this?" Jezza asked, the shock on her face was very real.

"We set out from Meridian two weeks ago." 

Nil watched Lansra's eyes flicker to him even as Teersa held the gaze of the Carja emissary. He shook his head slowly speaking to her without words. _Lies._ He'd spoken to Aloy in the last week. Had he not been forced to put aside his focus, he'd be transmitting this all to her now. Lansra turned to the cloaked figure snarling.

"If the Anointed were dead, the All-Mother would have given us a sign. Why should we trust you?"

"Apologies, I'm merely a messenger." He bowed again. "We will wrap and preserve her body and as the snow breaks for Spring, we will see her returned to you for the proper Nora rites - whatever those may be."

Nil couldn't help it. The smallest whisper of air slipped passed his teeth like a snakes hiss and one set of eyes flashed in his direction. He practically felt the heat of them on his face, scrutinizing him. With practiced effort he forced himself not to meet the man's gaze - Nil instead kept an expression of matched suspicion focused on the emissary. No more or less aggression than the Nora to his left or right.

"We will commune with the All-Mother."

Cordan turned back toward the gate, his eyes drawn toward the setting sun.

"My escort and I are at a disadvantage in the darkness. We're not accustomed to weather like this."

"You will be welcome till morning. Then you must leave our lands." Lansra snarled.

"You are _most_ gracious." He didn't bother hiding the distain in he voice.

And with that, Nil knew they would strike tonight. The Nora had hours to prepare. 

They gave them the use of the Oseram built stone hall and while the Carja warmed themselves and ate their fill, the Nora that had concealed themselves in the mountain came out and took their positions around Mother's watch.

Nil couldn't bring himself to venture far from the soldiers. Hyper vigilant that any moment would be the one they exploded out into the settlement weapons at the ready. Sona he could see had taken a sleepless cold watch in the darkness not far from the hall. She wouldn't be sitting out in the open in plain sight, comfortable beside the fire when it happened. She would be hidden in darkness. A cold death waiting for them. 

For all their claims of peace and friendship, the Carja placed a watch of two guards at their doors and Nil studied the bald one in the torchlight. It had been some number of years since he'd seen him, but he was no less recognizable - the mark beneath his eye was distinctive. A clip from the tip of an Oseram dagger. Memories flooded back to Nil. Some thoughts and scenes that had been best forgotten clawing their way to the surface. Aloy wouldn't have loved that man he'd been - wouldn't have even liked him. That was reason enough for Nil to take those memories - those old thoughts and crush them back down. He'd been that person because he didn't know it were possible to be better. 

The man he was watching motioned something to his comrade before disappearing around the wall of the building, vanishing into the night. With a skill honed in the long grass of several dozen now empty bandit camps, Nil followed him. To his disappointment it wasn't some convoluted scheme he stumbled upon, and he found the man simply taking a piss. He turned to leave and almost managed a step when the man spoke.

"I knew it was you. Cordan said there was absolutely no fucking way the Nora would put their mark on a Carja murderer, but there's no mistaking those eyes," he said, and although he faced away, there was a smile in the Carja's voice.

"It's nice to be recognized for hard earned skill." Nil chirped brightly. 

The man turned to him and brown eyes - black in the darkness - raked over the beard and the blue markings. Studying the changes the years had wrought in Nil. Amrus hadn't changed much Nil wagered. Still bald as a desert rock. A couple more wrinkles on his brow perhaps, but still the same.

"Last I'd heard you'd walked away from the Kestrels, volunteered instead for a term in Sunstone prison. Imagine my surprise to see you here with these savages."

"Savagery is something you do, not something you _are,_ Amrus."

"Is that so?" He snorted back at Nil, his hand going to his belt and the small blade there. "I suppose _you'd_ know. Only bastard I know that could creep about like a stalker, though, stalker would leave more of the body, I wager," He grinned; a smile wide with large gleaming white teeth. "So, what exactly brings you here?"

"Death. As usual," Nil said cordially. As if he were talking about the weather.

The man pulled his knife free and Nil heard the sound of his thumb nail pinging on its edge in threat.

"I might help you out then. For old times sake."

And as suddenly as it had come, Amrus's smile was gone and his eyes were wide. His body stiff.

"If he were really as stealthy as you claim, you wouldn't have ever known he was here." War chief Sona locked eyes with Nil over the man's shoulder. A soft critique of his stalking skills. His movements in the snow and on ice were still so loud in comparison to the other Nora. The edge of her blade caught the light and Nil saw the trickle of blood down the Carja's throat.

"You know this man?" Sona asked.

"A _long_ time ago." Nil whispered to her. He could hear noises from inside the stone wall. Muttering from out front. The opening and closing of the wooden doors. 

Whatever had been planned it seemed was taking place now. Perhaps hastened by the sudden disappearance of one of their watchmen.

"Alive or dead?" Sona asked him and Nil bit down. It wasn't that long ago that the answer as assuredly as he would breathe, would have been death. But this was war, not a hunt. And dead men didn't often speak.

"Alive... for _now."_

Sona's elbow struck Amrus in the temple hard and he toppled silently into the dark, snowy grass. 

The Carja emissary had come with a scant number of soldiers expecting a handful of Nora warriors in Mother's Watch. He'd expected to walk into an almost empty town populated by ghosts. But that hadn't been the case for weeks now.

Nil let Sona pass him as he circled around to the other side of the hall, coming up right behind the second guard as Sona stood out front. Her spear glowing in the torchlight as she faced the doorway.

"Where's Amrus?" The other guard asked her but she didn't reply. Quietly, Nil walked right up behind him and drew his blade across his throat. He died as most did. With a gurgle. A wide-eyed surprised wheeze. Blood splashed over white snow and as he fell, the doors burst open and the other Carja came racing out. 

Where they froze, all of them faced now with a wall of spears and arrows. Twenty or so braves forming two lines surrounding them. As other Nora exited the mountain, all of them carrying some kind of weapon. The high Matriarch's at the fore of them all.

Nil stepped out into the light and joined the end of the line, sliding the bow off his back and notching and arrow in it, taking his place beside the other archers. 

"You would think to catch us sleeping. You would think to walk in here with nothing but lies on your tongue and kill us while we slept," Lansra said moving to stand with Sona, taking a great satisfaction in the way the emissaries eyes narrowed in confusion - the way he twitched uncertainly as he counted the numbers. The sudden fear twisting his face.

"There are more than I was expecting," Cordan finally said. All traces of superior glee were gone. He'd been left a fool - a fool with out of date intelligence.

"There are more still," Teersa said softly. 

"No matter, we have plenty of agents in these sacred lands of yours."

"No, your mercenaries are dead," Nil said aloud, guessing those where who he meant. The man's gaze zeroed in on him. No matter his appearance, the lilt of a Carja heritage was heavy in his accent.

"Amrus was right. You're _Carja._ "

Nil didn't speak, only drawing his bow string just that little bit tighter. 

"The Carja are lost descendents of the Nora. And we've welcomed home many wayward brothers and sisters." Teersa whispered into the night. Nil hadn't known just how much Aloy had told the High Matriarch's, or whether they'd truly believe it or not. But from the accepting, stoic silence of the others present, this wasn't new information.

Nil couldn't have spoken if he'd tried, too stunned to formulate words.

" _Pig shit!_ " The emissary snarled. Both him and his soldiers were looking for a way out, Nil recognized. Scanning the lines of Nora for weaknesses they could exploit. He kept his arrowhead trained on their leaders throat. Around them, snow was beginning to fall again. Sunrise would arrive in a few hours but by then, there could be feet of fresh powder. Nil knew that they would have a harder time escaping in the snow than the Nora would tracking them.

"So what now? You kill us?"

"We would be well within our rights," said Lansra, standing up straight. Her old hands twisting beneath the cover of her sleeves. Nil saw the tip of a blade.

"We might strip you of your cloaks and gloves and March you back to Daytower in the cold." Jezza spoke up.

Which was as certain a death sentence as anything. It would be less cruel for Nil to put an arrow in them and be done with it. They would be dead before they made it to Mother Heart, forget about the Carja gates.

Someone at the rear of the group moved, drawing Nil's attention and he watched as a canister landed between Cordan and Sona. She quickly rolled to the side, as an explosion of noise and light and smoke broke the Nora lines, sending braves scattering. Nil turned away gasping for breath. His eyes and lungs burned, and as shouts rang out, the Carja rush them. Nil blinked through snow and tearing eyes as a knife appeared out of nowhere but the only thing that made contact was a spray of warm blood on his face as the point of Varl's spear burst through the man's chest.

Nil felt his eyes and lungs begin to clear and nodded his thanks as the Brave retrieved his spear before turning back to the fray. Nil fired off three shots which struck their targets but as fights went it was over quickly. The Carja had been outnumbered and in spite of the flash grenade, the Nora had cut through them.

The winds were picking up and the snow was beginning to thicken and while the fighting had stopped and visibility was poor, Nil counted out the fallen. He could see they were two Carja bodies short. Cordan and one of his guards were gone.

Notching another arrow Nil turned towards the gate intending on hunting them down, but nearer the doors of the sacred mountain a great cry rang out, and when he made to move a hand came down on his shoulder. 

"The High Matriarch," said Varl and Nil blinked stupidly as he pulled him up the slope to where a number of Nora were gathered around. Between them Lansra lay propped by the entrance, blood staining her clothing. How much was hers Nil couldn't be sure - she was still tightly holding a bloody knife.

"You're needed," Jezza said and there was a fearful warble in her voice but instantly Lansra's eyes focused on him.

"Fetch the girl, Fia, she will treat me."

"Half your insides are peeking through, don't be a fool," Jezza hissed. "You need an experienced healer."

"The _girl_ will treat me, and if it's the All-Mother's will, I'll live. But the _girl_ will treat me," she said pushing herself upright as Teersa joined them. Nil could see the words of protest forming around her but Lansra's lips were already turning blue.

"Let's get her inside," Teersa said finally.

At the edge of his senses Nil felt their quarry put distance between them. The urge to chase them howled in his blood, burning like a fever, but instead he followed Varl and the other's indoors. Jezza fell into step with him. 

"You will supervise," she said quietly in his ear and it wasn't a request. 

They set Lansra down by the fire and Nil watched Fia carefully peel back the torn cloth. There was a lot of blood as far as he could see. Not an encouraging sign for a wound in the abdomen, but it was still difficult to identify whether it was all hers. Nervously Fia began cleaning the area and as she mopped up the blood, old scars became visible to Nil. Marks he was familiar with. Across Lansra's abdomen, the old marks of Carja whips crisscrossed. Nil knew that on slaves, those scars filled their backs - the backs of their legs and arms thick with them. But the High Matriarch had faced the whip. At some point in her life, Lansra had been tortured by the Carja.

Fia's hands shook and Lansra growled, grabbing her by the wrist.

"Don't you _dare_ let me die, girl!" she snarled chewing up more of the painkilling root she'd been given.

And Nil watched something extraordinary happen. Fia took a slow breath and her hands steadied. 

"Yes, Matriarch," she said with nod. And Nil watched her swallow her fear and finally get to work. Cleaning up as much of the blood as she could and with a small steel needle red hot from the fire she began to seal the small blood vessels responsible for a majority of the bleeding. She cleaned and sutured and only once or twice did she look to him for her next steps. Pride flooded him. Strange and warm and enveloping. 

When she was finished with Lansra the woman was unconscious but alive and already others were lining up with various cuts and wounds in need of treatment. He watched the young healer move smoothly on from one patient to the next, and Nil would have helped if Sona hadn't beckoned him back outside. In the snow, Varl had drawn a crude but strangely accurate map of the Embrace. Nil looked up into a still dark sky peppered with large, drifting flakes of snow. Something told him another blizzard was on the way, but not one of the Nora seemed concerned with the weather.

"They won't get far, Carja only use two paths." Sona marked two points on the map further north. "They'll use Daytower gate or Dawn's Sentinel. Either way they cross the roads to Mother's Rise and Mother's Crown."

From the corner of his eye Nil watched two Nora tie Amrus up. Bind his hands to his feet before dragging him into the stone hall. The man still hadn't come round.

"Is there anyone fast enough to beat them there - cut them off?" Nil found himself asking even as his eyes wandered back from the Carja prisoner.

"We do." Sona clapped a girl perhaps a few years younger than Aloy on the back so hard that the slip of a thing almost fell over.

"I can be there before dawn," the girl said full of that youthful confidence that often got soldiers her age killed. But Sona nodded and as though she were the wind itself the girl raced out into the darkness. 

Nil didn't mention the blizzard likely setting in. They knew more of Winters in the Embrace than he did. If he was seeing the signs of a blizzard now, they'd probably already noticed the day before. 

"Will the High Matriarch live?" Varl asked.

Nil wanted to tell them that he feared for any god or demon that came to claim the old woman. That she would not walk quietly into oblivion. She would kick and scream and thrash and gnaw on them with old, chipped, painted teeth. But instead he simply nodded.

"If your All-Mother favours her...but she's in capable hands," he said instead. This seemed to be the correct thing to say on this particular occasion and on empty stomachs, in the bitter cold of a still dark, early morning, Sona led them to the gate to begin their hunt.

And as they began to jog through the snow, Nil felt heat surge through his limbs shaking off the cold. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to sincerely apologise for anyone waiting for updates. My day job has been spilling into the unpaid hours of my life along with health issues and it's been difficult to get the time to write - or sleep properly. Christmas has been particularly rough. I've read and reread every wonderful, heart-warming comment and it keeps me writing when I don't think I can continue. 
> 
> Love you all, 
> 
> Moon

Carja silk was sheer, and Aloy felt the icy wind burn her skin long before the fluttering of snow touched her chin and stabbed at her eyes.

The soldiers footsteps were easy to follow in the even as a fresh blanket fell from the sky. Clumsy, clambering - a deep path like a scar cut along the road as they slowly picked their way up into the mountains. They lumbered forward. Men and women weighted down with supplies and furs - with weapons. Carja heavy infantry unaccustomed to moving in bad weather. Aloy on the other hand moved quickly, and even then the snow thickened and the ice barbed every rock and uncovered foothold, she didn't slip like they did. Instead, she slung a coat of fur over the silk and armour and slipped into tougher hide boots.

Aloy had taken this path only once before. It had been late Spring but then even the weather had been far from kind and it had pissed a lake down through the valley. Aloy still recalled the Thunderjaw. How it slipped in the mud allowing her to get away. Absently she wondered if it was still prowling the area. If the Carja heading toward Mother's Heart knew what might wait for them in the hills. Aloy got her answer quicker than she'd hoped. As the wind picked up and the snow began beating hard against her face, she saw the towering figure take shape. It's head tilted skyward, great maw open in a silent scream to the obscured stars overhead. Aloy slowed as she crept up on it. It was so strange to be so close to one still alive but inert. The Thunderjaw's body stood frozen in the snow. A sentinel standing guard over Nora lands - something far more ominous in place of gates and fierce Braves. Such was the Nora way. Their walls were the mountains, their patrols were the unsleeping eyes of the watchers scouring the tall grasses. She let her gloved hand hover over the armour plate. It wasn't the blizzard that had silenced the gears of the Thunderjaw she realized. The scent of chillwater lingered and Aloy could still feel the distant heat buried beneath the surface of the metal. The life still burning in it, waiting for the thaw. The areas too deep for the chillwater to have soaked still groaned and thrashed against the ice.

The Carja had come prepared after all, but the machines were hardier than the animals. They could be repaired - the ones that fell in the snow in Winter shook themselves of ice in Spring and continued on as if nothing had happened. This Thunderjaw had guarded this valley trail for two decades at least, and Aloy suspected it would be there long after her bones were buried in the dirt. 

"See you in the Summer, big guy," she said, patting the armour. She could have sworn she felt a hum in response but it could have just as easily been a figment of her mind.

Aloy followed the trail in the thickening snow for a full day before she stumbled on the first body. The man's face looked serene, eyes frozen open as he stared up at the sky. His last sight perhaps hoping to see the stars - see something beyond clouds still heavy with snow. The dead man looked young. This was likely his first raid into Nora lands. He might not have ever seen snow before. That thought stirred something painful in her. He hadn't had to die here. Cold and alone, beneath a foreign, pitiless sky. Aloy pulled the furs tighter, her Carja silk shirt offered some insulation. It was a wondrous fabric, really, but it was no match for this type of bone deep cold. 

Aloy knelt at his side and took off her headpiece. She cupped his icy cheek for a moment and though she herself didn't believe in the Gods, Carja or otherwise, she hoped that something familiar and comforting awaited him beyond this life. No mourners or funeral pyre, but Aloy gave him that quiet moment before she slipped the larger, heavier helm from his brow and set it on her own.

If she was unlucky and the Carja spotted her, they might mistake her for their fallen comrade and their moments hesitation would mean all the difference. If she were able to slip into their midst and take down their commander without being seen, there was a chance the others would flee. Nora law was otherwise a death sentence and it would be better if she found them before they raced headfirst into a conflict with Sona.

A few years ago Aloy wouldn't have cared what happened to Carja invading Nora lands. She'd have only worried that the Nora were too weak to defend themselves. But now that she'd looked into the cold eyes of Carja soldiers and seen a stolen childhood. Seen the years of evil orders. Seen the corruption in their courts. If the Nora had once called them enemies, Aloy knew that it was really just the Carja system they warred with. The only _true_ enemy of the Nora was fear and superstition. She'd been made to save this world. Maybe for a fraction of a moment after she'd put her spear into Hades, she'd allowed herself to believe that her task was done. But it wasn't. She was born into the Nora but she wasn't really one of them. Aloy _couldn't_ be one of them. When she worried for her people, that had to be a worry for _all_ people. 

Gaia didn't bring her into the world to save just the Nora. 

The wind blew harder and Aloy bit down hard enough to feel her jaw crack as it fought the urge to chatter. The temperature was continuing to drop and the snowfall so thick and hard now that Aloy could no longer see the footsteps she was following. She couldn't even see her own feet. She followed only the turn of the road as it wound up into the mountains. There was only uphill or down. Forward or back.

When Aloy eventually found the Carja they were huddled together, wrapped in every scrap of leather and fur they could find - the canvas for their tents thrown over shaking shoulders. In Winter, the pass at Daytower was a horrible trek to take, part of the reason the Carja had only ever marched in Spring or Summer. There was a reason that Sun King's passed had never taken this road. Least of all in Winter. It was the longer road. Treacherous, even in the Summer months.

And this was the worst Winter Aloy had seen hit Nora lands. This was a _Banuk_ winter. And she knew a man who once claimed his own piss had frozen mid stream on his last trip through the Cut.

There they all were. Shivering together. Unable to move. Disorientated in the blizzard and the dark. Aloy reckoned they couldn't have been far from the ruins dotting this end of the path. They might have found shelter if they'd made it a few feet further. They'd be able to see the walls if the weather cleared, sitting there, staring at them. They might have even seen her, doing the same.

But they didn't see Aloy, not even when she was within striking distance. She could have put her spear through the nearest Carja and the others might not have even noticed, the wind at her back now, their faces turned away from the ice. She scanned their number looking for whoever was in charge - they were far less than she'd been expecting - but she didn't see the telltale colours signifying Carja rank. They were half of what she was expecting.

Aloy took a slow careful breath, warming the air before bringing it into her lungs, and then she took out her spear and set the point against the man's shoulder. 

"All of you! Up!" she barked, her voice fighting the howl of the blizzard.

Cold, disorientated faces looked up at her standing there. Some of them it was clear didn't think Aloy was real. They blinked stupidly. 

"You're maybe fifty feet from the ruins walls," Aloy called out again, taking her spear and pointing up the trail, watching men and women clamber to their feet in shock. They'd not expected anyone to sneak up on their rear - certainly not in this weather. "Where's your commander?" She asked. 

The Carja that had been at the end of her spear raised one gloved and shaking hand and pointed out into the snow. Aloy blinked, and between the snowflakes gathering on her eyelashes, she caught the edge of a helm, already almost entirely covered. The others are already dead.

Aloy pulled back her spear and marched to the front of the group. Not one of the Carja had the strength to go for their weapons. Not one made the attempt. And she realized they'd already accepted death. Accepted that they'd be left to die out here. Sent on a fools quest by men who likely had no idea of the many ways this was a stupid plan. Every lost life was a tragedy. And every man and woman sent to die for someone else's selfish ambitions or pride was a crime. Against all that Gaia and Elisabet had fought and built and died for. That beyond the end of the world, at the dawn of the new one there was still so much senseless death. 

"Follow me," she called to them as she began to trudge through the snow towards the old buildings.

There was no roof on the shelter she led them to, but there were two intact walls blocking the worst of the falling snow - shielding them from the bitter wind, and Aloy could actually see earth beneath her feet. There were ten still alive. Only ten had made it this far. Not one of them would have survived to reach mother's Crown. Not one. Aloy stomped out a flat space protected from the wind by the walls, and then took an entire quiver of arrows, broke them and began to set a fire. Once the crackle of flames began, two more Carja emptied their arrows into it and as the waves of heat hit them, a spear was broken and it too was cast in. 

"What exactly are you all doing in Nora lands?" Aloy asked them.

"They sent their anointed to poison our King," a woman answered, tent canvas still wrapped over her shoulders.

"Avad is my _friend,"_ Aloy whispered, looking up at them. Noticing the looks pass between them at the realization that she was the one that had been accused of the crime. The man to her left put a hand to the hilt of a blade at his waist and Aloy snapped her head in his direction. "I have no reason to want him dead. I don't even have a reason to want _you_ dead." She braced her palms against the flames and sighed at the luxury of warmth in a storm such as this. "But if you're so eager to die..." she started to say, hand slipping to her own spear.

"I believe you," the woman said, holding up her hands. "Our orders didn't come from the palace," 

"Kesa!" The man who'd been going for his knife snarled at her. "Shut your fucking mouth!"

Aloy watched her bite down on her tongue, turning away. But the man chastising her didn't go for his weapon again. He huddled tighter to the fire.

"If I want you dead, I've only to walk out into the snow. You won't make it back, you won't make it ahead - not without me."

"Why should we trust a Nora savage in stolen armour?"

"Because I'm currently the only Nora in these lands who isn't going to kill you on sight." Aloy looked at every single set of still blue lips. "This is a bad blizzard, but if you think this would turn back a Nora hunting party you're delusional."

"We were sent out here to _die_ ," someone hissed, venom in their words.

"You were sent out here to _kill-"_ Aloy corrected _,_ her tone frosty. "- to _murder_ innocent people. But I have no intention of letting either of those things happen."

"We won't make it back to the towers in this, and overseer Cordan will be expecting us,"

"Kesa, keep your mouth _shut."_ The man ground out again. 

"Cordan?" Aloy asked. "Who's overseer Cordan?" Aloy turned to them each in question. The soldier with his hand now back on his knife stared at each of them in turn. The threat was obvious. To keep silent. Aloy turned to him when the others remained quiet.

"You can tell me and I can promise you will live to see Meridian, or you can die. Here. Alone and cold. Forgotten."

The man's composure finally broke under the threat 

"Overseer Cordan is an Oseram, works for Lord Anis. Over half the grain in Carja comes from land owned by Lord Anis." he begrudgingly admitted.

And Aloy knew she'd found at least one of the moving pieces of this puzzle. The Carja name spoken aloud stirred the heavy silence like a spell. They were all now considering the same thing she knew for certain. 

"And where is he?"

"He went ahead. With some others."

Aloy sucked in a calming breath even as her blood boiled. They went forth to strike at the heart of Nora territory. These were to be his backup. If Mother's Heart fell, and reinforcements were sent from Crown, they'd have likely died on the road, caught between two Carja forces. That might very well have been the case if this had occurred a few months later - a few weeks earlier.

Aloy felt the ache in her arm as the heat returned to her fingers and her still healing limb throbbed. She rummaged around in her supplies for some dried pork and nuts and swore she would find some way to thank Erend for all that he'd done. 

The stone walls kept the wind from them through the night and as the sun rose the next day and parted the clouds briefly - a temporary respite before the next storm, Aloy saw the bodies frozen in the snow. Dozens of them. 

"Is it far to Mother's Crown?"

Aloy found Kesa keeping close while the older man Vitto kept to the rear, his hand never far from a weapon. While the others who's names she still didn't know kept their distance, the woman walked only a step behind with her tent spooled around her shoulders. The oiled canvas material had likely saved her and the other's lives. While many more had died in the cold.

"Only half a day. The road will wind down passed the hunting grounds,"

"And what then?"

"Wait for the storms to pass, resupply and I'll have someone escort you back through the Daytower gates."

And the woman smiled - _beamed_ at Aloy. 

"You would let us go home?"

"I'm not interested in seeing people die for the mistakes of others. Go back to Meridian and find something better to do with your life."

The woman grew quiet - contemplative and Aloy hoped maybe she'd take something of that to heart.

There brief respite throughout the morning vanished in the space of minutes, and Aloy felt the wind pick up and the sky darken again shortly before noon as the snow started falling again. Thunder - booming so loud the mountains trembled - exploded around them. Aloy had experienced something like it in the Cut where the Banuk called it thundersnow, but never here. Louder and more frightening than anything these Carja had likely seen back home. It was loud enough to rattle even Aloy's teeth. It wouldn't have surprised her if one or two of them had emptied their bladders.

But the road had begun to plateau, and Aloy knew they would begin to wind down into the valley where the mountains would shield them from the worst of it.

Daylight did little for the visibility overall, but through the snow, Aloy saw the first of the shadows appear. Moving toward them at speed. Two, perhaps three figures.

Aloy lifted her spear as they grew closer and the cloaks they wore - the colours beneath them became sharper. A face appeared, red and huffing for breath and as Aloy scoured her memory for his image something tackled her from behind and she fell forward. 

Muffled by the snow and the wind she heard someone yell but couldn't quite make out the words. She scrambled to her feet just in time to see the figures dart passed her, Vitto beckoning them back the way they'd come. Aloy bit out a growl as the Carja assassins made their escape, slipping right by them. The others were frozen still. No one else moved. Unwilling to go back down into the storm that had almost killed them. 

And then Aloy saw what they were running from. What it was that had chased them through the blizzard. The flash of the tip of a polished spear in the white, before the arrow hit her in the chest. A Nora arrow. 

A pair of grey eyes widening.


	24. Chapter 24

Aloy opened and closed her mouth in surprise but she didn't make a sound and somewhere deep in the pit of Nil's stomach fell into the abyss. Still shocked, he watched as she glanced down at the arrow, eyes narrowing as though confused by it's existence. Nil tried to scream out for Sona to stop, he could see she'd already notched another arrow and was pulling back her bowstring for a second shot, but the breath in his chest had been stolen by the wind, his legs frozen. Unable to move he could only watch the events play out in slow motion. Horror permeating his very soul. For the first time that he could remember, Nil felt true fear - felt a heart racing panic as Aloy dropped to her knees, a Carja woman rushing to her side. Her hands hovering up uncertainly near the shaft of the arrow lodged in Aloy's chest. Not knowing if she should pull it free. 

And Nil found his voice.

 _"SONA!"_

The War chief looked at him, at the terror on his face and although she was confused she relaxed her bowstring. The moment passed and Nil found his feet, rushing for Aloy. His hands slipped to her shoulders as she yanked the arrow out of her chest, ripped silk and leather stuck to the tip.

" _Don't move_!" He pleaded, his voice shaking - he couldn't help it, but Aloy looked up at him and smiled playfully, before reaching up to tug at the hairs on his chin.

"I'm _fine,"_ she breathed. He heard the 'now' she didn't need to include in the statement.

Nil pulled fearfully at the front of her furs, checking for the wound but there was very little blood. The arrow tip hadn't made it far, snagging on fur and leather and the expensive silks beneath. Nil collapsed to his knees at her side and pulled her so tight against him he worried she might break, but Aloy only laughed breathlessly, wrapping an arm around his neck, kissing him on the cheek.

"Anointed? _Aloy?"_

The look of shock on Sona's face was genuinely priceless, but for the slack expression that Nil knew he still wore. 

"Can you stand?" 

Aloy smirked, her eyes narrowing as she climbed back up onto her feet. Kesa reached for her shoulder but Aloy held up her hands.

"Better than Sona can see, apparently."

"I didn't recognize you," the war chief stammered. Embarrassed at how close she'd almost come to killing the Nora's Anointed one.

But Nil had recognized her. Even with her hair tied up underneath the Carja plate and feathers, in the flurries of thick snow, the freckles across her nose, her green eyes - there was no one in the world like her.

Satisfied that Aloy was mostly unharmed, Sona's gaze turned to the others with her, flickering to the dark figures still racing to escape them. Cordan and his last guard slipping and stumbling downhill. 

"Let them go. They likely won't see sunset in that weather."

"And these?" Sona's bow arched across the other Carja soldiers all huddling in fear and cold.

"They're to go back to Meridian. We can resupply and take them to Daytower."

"You would let them live?" Sona's brow crinkled in discord. "The price for trespass is death!"

"As is the price for Carja who disobey orders. Die there. Die here. These lands have seen enough death, I think." She glanced at the Carja woman who'd gone to her aid and gave a soft smile. "These Carja won't be returning."

"Very well," Sona rasped, though her tone thick was with displeasure. 

Nil slipped his hands to Aloy's cheeks before kissing her softly. She cooed against his lips and laughed as he slipped the helmet from her head, freeing her hair. The wind whipped the loose braids about him, a halo of fire in the blizzard.

"You knew it was me?" Aloy asked him. 

"I would be blind and deaf and I would know you," he told her. Her delighted smile was worth a decade of ice storms and exile.

Nil picked up the arrow that had almost killed her and put it in his own quiver. He wasn't sure why. It seemed wrong to leave it there in the snow still tinged with her blood.

Though the injury wasn't severe, Aloy moved slowly and Nil made sure to shadow her closely as the group made their way down into the low lands and out of the worst of the snow. He noticed she no longer favored her spear hand, walking with her weapon tight in her other fist, using it as a crutch. When they stopped to rest he would need to ask her what had happened, but not here, not now. Nil didn't recognize any of the Carja that followed her. Lost, miserable souls from the look of them. Some cast him curious glances, as if they'd seen his face before - a memory of a dream only, but they didn't speak. They looked away if you held their eyes too long. To them he was just another Nora Brave.

When they all finally made it to Mother's Crown, a great fire was burning against the dying afternoon light. Waves of heat carried far enough on the wind that Nil felt his cheeks flush as they crossed the bridge. A welcome and heady rush of hot blood to his cold skin. The Carja gathered around it shaking. Laughing, some of them. Nil knew how they felt. Now that he looked, he noticed they'd draped tent canvas over their shoulders. They might have died of relief alone.

Sona pointed to an empty cabin and Aloy lumbered up a set of steps. Following, Nil found her sitting with her back against the wall, clutching her arm.

"Your arm?"

"Broke it a few weeks back," she mumbled tiredly.

Nil sat beside her an held out his hands and with difficulty she extended the injured limb to him. He didn't hesitate when he cut the material open from her wrist to her elbow and frowned at the bruising that was still prevalent.

"How long exactly?" He eyed her with suspicion.

"Little over two weeks ago,"

He bit down, his jaw straining. Either the break was truly heinous or Aloy hadn't given it the time to rest. It was not where it should be in terms of healing. But Nil said nothing about it. Aloy likely knew. And if she'd not rested it, it was likely she'd not had time to.

"Were there any casualties at Mother's Heart?" she asked him as he set a new splint on her forearm.

"Some injured. Nothing permanent. Hopefully, at least," he noticed the curious look she gave him and smirked. "Don't worry, I left them in good hands with my apprentice."

Aloy sat up a little straighter, an eyebrow rising in disbelief.

"An _apprentice?"_

"Without you there to defend me, I ended up blackmailed into helping one of the Nora healers." Nil admitted with a chuckle.

And Aloy laughed at him. 

"Little Fia got the best of you, eh?"

" _Little Fia_ relocated the hip of a two hundred and fifty pound man effortlessly, and has probably outgrown the description as _little."_

Aloy smiled at him, closing her eyes. Nil could see the long, soft fingers of sleep beckon to her.

"You got what you went for?" he asked.

"I have the first part, yes. But there's something going on in Carja, someone attempted to poison the King, lay the blame on me. Then _this,"_ she sighed deeply. 

"They probably intended to make it look like the Nora were the aggressors here, too."

It wasn't a standard Carja tactic - it lacked the directness Nil was used to with Carja military. Smile to your face as they're slipping poison into your wine; there was a stink of the courtiers about the maneuver. The throne would have simply send their armies forward. They wouldn't have bothered with subterfuge. They didn't have to. No, nobles and their ilk moved like that - moved in the dark. Hit you where you were blind. Where you were weak.

"Whatever they intended, it's gone up in flames, now. The King was still alive when I left Carja. Erend is absolutely pissed off. There's a lengthy queue of people waiting to introduce those responsible to the sole of their boots and the edge of an executioners axe."

She winced suddenly as Nil tightened the new splint and he paused a moment till he could be sure the pain had passed. 

"How'd this happen?"

"A building fell down on me," she said, the corner of her mouth twisting upward in a sly smile.

"Of _course,"_ Nil said with a laugh. Nothing short of of that could be expected to break the bones of someone fighting machines with her bare hands.

"I think what I have now should be enough to bring Gaia back online - something local, anyway," she looked at him sadly. "I'll have to go back to Meridian. If anything to clear my name. Whoever made an attempt on the King is likely involved with the mercenaries we've been finding on Nora land."

"We'll root them out _together."_

Nil hadn't quite realised how much he'd missed her till he saw her in that blizzard. He wasn't willing to be parted again so soon after their reunion.

Nil watched as Aloy closed her eyes, exhaustion finally catching up to her and hitting hard. The cold did that, sapping the body of heat and energy and the will to stay awake. As her breathes became even, he carefully he picked her up and carried her to a nearby cot, setting her down and covering her with furs. It was an almost physical strain not to join her; for a long moment, Nil wanted nothing more in the world than to curl up around her, feel her against him and know that she was safe. But he had questions. Questions that would not keep till morning.

He found the Carja still warming by the fire. Bowls of hot food had been handed out to them and they clutched them tightly in hand. Had Aloy not been there to say otherwise, they would all have been nothing but corpses in the snow. Sona would not have been as merciful.

And Nil would have been less merciful than that, even. But he believed in picking his own battles. And Cordan's face... Nil had marked it. He would remember him; had an arrow that by all rights belonged to him, currently sitting in his quiver still stained with Aloy's blood. He would see if returned to it's proper place.

"You!" Nil called out to the woman he'd seen rush to Aloy's side when she was hit. She looked up at him like a deer in torchlight; wide-eyed and ready to bolt. Her face had been practically singed by the flames of the fire, she sat so close. Nil held up a hand to calm her. "You can relax. I just have questions." The woman remained somewhat tense, chewing slowly, but she eventually nodded.

"I don't know much."

Nil looked to her uniform. It was ill-fitting. She wasn't important enough to have been clad in anything custom. 

"I understand, but answer what you can. You know who sent you into Nora lands?"

"The Carja grain master. He came to our outpost - spoke with our Commander. Sent his man ahead of us. We were to take the long road."

"Where were you stationed?"

"The last outpost on the road to Sunfall."

"Commander _Vanat?_ Vanat sent you against the Nora?"

There was suspicion on her face at the mention of the Commander's name. 

"Why would a Nora know that name?"

"A _Nora_ wouldn't," was all Nil said as he turned away in search of Sona. He'd once served under Vanat and the man had been a tyrant even then. Someone who had no problem putting a whip to a free Carja soldier - forget about what he would do to a slave under his command. Vanat genuinely didn't see the difference. Under him you did as he told you. There was no exit. No escape from that bar death or reassignment. Human life was worthless to him and a part of Nil he realised had been hoping he'd died - been killed when the Shadow Carja fractured away. That Nil surrendered some years of his life in Sunstone while Vanat apparently still held command left a bitter, nauseating taste in his mouth.

So far there was Cordan, Anis the Lord he served, and Commander Vanat. Nil would need to ponder the situation more. But there was enough there to start.

The War Chief was sitting in the dark and cold sharpening the tip of her spear when Nil found her.

"Aloy's sleeping. Your arrow didn't make it far - a small cut only."

"Good to know," Sona sighed, her face troubled. "I no longer bother to look at the faces. She's lucky."

Nil crouched down and rubbed his hands against the cold, a slow creeping grin tugging at his lips.

"To be honest, I'm glad it was you and not me. The road to Meridian is a long one and Sun King Avad already considers me a deranged murderer. I doubt I'd be welcome in his Kingdom again if I'd have been the one holding the bow."

"Yes, when you're actually the most _level-headed_ murder I've ever met," she said.

"Was that a _joke?"_

Sona snorted though she didn't answer him. Her eyes flashing across his face as she set the sharpening stone down.

"And if you _had_ shot her?"

"I'd have slit my own throat." Nil said in all truth. Hoping Sona heard the sincerity in those words, because they were more than empty sentiment after all. He took a breath, letting the tension of the day fade from his shoulders. "I don't trust any of them. Not her friends. Not the Sun-King. I won't let her walk into that again, not alone. You'll need to reorganize the patrols."

"I won't say you won't be missed, but we'll manage just fine." Sona said stiffly. "She needs you more I think. I fear Aloy can be too trusting."

 _And Carja are not to be trusted_. Nil heard the words in the silence that followed. At one point he might have agreed with Sona on both counts, but he no longer believed it. Aloy looked for the spark of something good in people. Latched onto it and fought hard to pull it to the surface. But she was very far from naive. Cautious, maybe. Even ruthless, when she had to be. 

"I'll make sure your arrow finds a worthy mark." Nil told her before standing up again feeling the painful stiffness of the cold in his knees. It was all still somewhat new to him. People. Social interaction. But if there was one thing he'd found in his time in the Embrace, it was that while he considered himself an outsider, he wasn't, not here anyway. Not anymore. He'd a great many things in common with Sona and the others. He respected them and for what it was worth, that seemed to be reciprocated.

Aloy was dreaming when he slipped into bed beside her. Mumbling adorable nonsense in her sleep that made his heart ache and left him smiling like a fool. His body ached from the grueling chase - the fading adrenaline left him bone weary, but Nil found sleep a difficult prey to catch with thoughts of civil war and unrest plaguing him. Carja was an unstable mess at the best of times, but with political forces likely already moving in on the throne things were about to get worse. Aloy hadn't experienced the last upheaval. Didn't know just how dangerous the Sun Kingdom was about to become, but Nil had. He'd fought with what had since become the Shadow Carja - he'd passed the Kestral trials. Nil had been there to see families rip themselves apart over who should sit on that ridiculous chair. He'd have warned her to stay away if he thought it would do anything other than irritate her. 

Nil didn't remember falling asleep but despite it all he did. When he woke, it was still dark out and at some point Aloy had turned, her face pressing in against his chest, her fingers twisting in the furs he still wore. She loved him he knew, but she couldn't love him like he did her. Nil would let the world burn for a moment with her. He would let all of Carja scream in flames if it meant a day with her. But Aloy wouldn't - _couldn't._

Nil might have loved her a little more for that alone. 

He leaned down and brushed the crown of her head with his chin and she sighed, bringing a smile to his face. This was enough. It would always be enough for him. 

"What time is it?"

Nil looked toward the window at the pink and purple hues beginning to streak the night sky and he hummed. 

"An hour or so before dawn, wildling," he whispered.

She looked up at him.

_"Wildling?"_

Nil only smirked at her half-hearted attempt to look indignant at the pet name.

Finally, Aloy reached up and traced the blue still marking his face, looking at the markings in wonder. Even as the Anointed, Aloy still had none. Even after being welcomed back into the tribe, elevated to the highest places of honor, for her own reasons she'd still chosen not to wear the paint. Even now, she kept a distance. She wasn't born to save _just_ the Nora, was what she'd said. 

Before the sun rose Nil told her all that had happened that she'd yet to hear. The things he'd avoided speaking about over the focus she'd left him. The outcasts welcomed back. The softening of generations upon generations of dogma. Teersa's words to him, about the Nora having a purpose they'd neglected. Aloy listened in delighted wonder and as the sun rose they both prepared to leave for Mother's Heart.

Sona saw to it that the Carja were escorted back to the gates of Daytower. A gift from the Anointed. An answer to their attack - one of mercy and compassion in the stead of their violent assault. Nora normally left bodies at the gates, so a dozen half froze Carja with bellies full of Nora stew was a clear response to a question no one had asked aloud, but many would privately ponder: had the Nora truly been behind the poisoning of the King?

Aloy was clever. Far clever than many would credit her.

Mother's Heart welcomed their return with cheers and music and jubilation. They'd endured so much suffering - seen such loss that this single act of successful defense lifted the spirits of the entire tribe. It mended strained bonds and friendships as only victory did. They were no longer a vulnerable, near extinct people being crushed beneath the weight of their own beliefs. It felt like the dawn of something more. A new tribe emerging from the fires of cataclysm.

At the entrance to the mountain Teersa, Jezza and Lansra greeted them warmly. Jezza touched his shoulder, nodding softly as Teersa pressed Aloy's face between her palms. Lansra seemed to be on the road to healing, and while she walked with a cane, she walked, nonetheless. Although Nil could spot Fia hovering disapprovingly in the shadows like a stalker, no doubt waiting for the first stumble or sign of weakness to order her back to bed. Pride swelled in Nil's chest again. She would be a truly great healer.

When the cradle opened they all proceeded to follow Aloy down into the ruins below. 

Nil wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. He'd been in plenty of old world ruins. Cold, twisted, rusted steel. Sharp to the touch. But this? He couldn't describe it. A place filled with children's paintings and toys, computer terminals for learning, Aloy explained. There was still life here. Living history.

Gaia really was the All-Mother, this truly had been the cradle of life in the new world.

Aloy had been born of a living God.

The Matriarch's absorbed it all in perfect silence. Not one of them dared ask any questions for fear of sounding disrespectful. Nil took it all in quietly, his fingers fumbling with the focus he'd not yet put back on. Even knowing all this in advance failed to fully prepare him for how overwhelming it was to touch it and _know_ it was truth. 

In a still intact room untouched by the damage and ruin outside in the halls, Aloy removed the device she'd salvaged in Carja and inserted it into a space on the terminal.

Everyone held their breath and for several tense seconds nothing happened. 

And then... everything happened at once. The lights overhead flickered. Sealed doors out in the hallways opened and deep, deep down in the cradle the hum of ancient generators started up. And Nil watched the figure of a woman appear. A holographic representation of a physical body that didn't exist. And she looked down at Aloy, smiled and spoke.

"Elisabet, my friend," she said.

"It's Aloy." 

Gaia's image flickered a moment before she smiled again, somewhat sadly.

"My apologies Aloy, newer damaged fragments of memory are merging with my primary backup." Her head swivelled to the Matriarch's - to Nil. "You've brought others?"

"These are the leaders of the tribe that's protected the cradle. They defended this place from Hades machines. From it's allies seeking vengeance."

"Descendents of the first children created here," Gaia said knowingly.

"All-Mother!" Jezza bowed in reference.

"Mother?" The AI repeated quietly, almost to herself. The gesture so inanely human that Nil had difficulty comprehending that this was something beyond meager flesh. "I guess I am mother in a way." She looked back at Aloy, eyes fixed on her face. "Hades?"

"I used the override... but it was able to escape to some sort of portable storage device. Contained and locked away for the minute, but I've no idea if there's a chance it will get loose again."

"You've done the world a great service." She looked to them all one by one. "I am Gaia,"

"I am High Matriarch, Teersa."

"I am High Matriarch, Lansra."

"I am High Matriarch, Jezza."

They all bowed in turn and then the AI was looking at him and Nil found his tongue sitting thick and clumsy in his mouth.

"I'm nobody," he said quietly. 

_"Nil."_ Gaia breathed his name out like a prayer...or a curse. With an understanding that unsettled him.

"How do you know that? How do you know my name?" he asked, startled and Lansra hissed at him under her breath. That he would dare ask such a question from the Nora's god. 

But Gaia simply smiled at him - no, she _smirked_ Nil realised. Though the AI have no indicator that she would answer.

Sensing the tension, Aloy finally interjected.

"Gaia, what is Atlas?"

"Atlas is an unmanaged terraforming engine, Aloy. It's capable of mass landscaping and structural change. It regulates atmosphere and weather."

"Unmanaged? So it doesn't have it's own AI? Is it still functional?" Aloy asked.

Gaia's eyes closed and her face became strained.

 _"No._ I'm detecting damage to critical components at it's core. Atlas is not currently operational."

"You said weather. That it helps regulate weather?"

"Yes,"

"What happens to weather if it's not currently functional?"

"Eventually, nature finds its own balance but this new world is young. With Atlas offline there will be instability."

Aloy sighed, coming to terms with something it seemed she'd already likely figured out.

"At the moment the worst Winter in living memory has hit these lands. Adverse weather has also affected other territories surrounding us. Are repairs possible?"

"I don't have cauldron access to currently craft what would be required."

"The Nora will aid you in whatever way we can." Teersa bowed low, there was a moments hesitation before the others followed her.

"Thank you," Gaia said, genuine surprise in her voice. 

"What about Hades?" Aloy asked. She'd left it in the ruins. Locked away. Primarily because she didn't know what to do with it. She couldn't be entirely sure if an attempt to destroy it wouldn't free it instead. She'd already sacrificed and suffered so much to bring it back to that point.

"Is his prison secure?"

"No one else knows his location, or that he still exists at all."

"Then that will have to suffice for the moment, Aloy." And she smiled again, something like relief on her holographic features. If Aloy was correct and Gaia was alive, with a spirit of her own, then they'd saved her life as well. "I've opened a control room close by and loaded up maps and images of Atlas. I've transferred the same to both of your focuses."

Nil fidgeted with his offline earpiece, secured in his pocket. He hadn't worn it since the Carja attack. And finding Aloy already on Nora lands, Nil hadn't bothered to put it back on, but he felt it hum now under his fingers and he set the device over his ear again.

"" _If - when you get this, know that I have the first piece. I have it._ " Laughter rang in his ear. " _I have it and I love you."_

Nil felt the sound of her voice in his head like a shot of liquor straight to the blood. Intoxicating and heady. He almost pinched himself, after all, Aloy was standing right there beside him and this was simply a recording, but he heard the pain in her voice, the breathless jubilation. Gaia's eyes turned to him as the message played and a dark thought occured to Nil. That she'd heard it. That she'd known his name because she'd tapped into Aloy's focus on waking. Using it to fill in the gaps of memory.

Nil felt uneasy knowing that she might likely spy on Aloy - on him, now - just like Sylens had. 

"Are there any medical devices here? Scanners?" Nil found himself suddenly asking. 

While the Matriarch's left them - likely to speak with the others about how confident they were with Oseram spark cutters, Nil amusedly wagered - Gaia guided him and Aloy to a small chamber; flashing lights along the corridors and leading them to the medical facilities. Aloy set her arm across the table at the center of the room and at Gaia's command the consoles flared to life and a holographic image of muscle and bone appeared hovering over it showing him the extent of the injury.

Nil stepped forward transfixed on the image. Technology like this could save limbs. It would change medicine - the limits of medicine. He saw old healed fractures. Sprains. Tears. 

"Is it bad?" Aloy asked him tentatively and Nil blinked back to awareness.

"No. Your splint worked. The break looks mostly clean, it's just mending slowly."

Nil's eyes zeroed in on a piece of broken bone. 

"There's a delayed union," he pointed to a segment of the hologram. 

"What does that mean?"

"The fracture is healing slower than usual."

Aloy activated her focus.

"Gaia wanted to see," Aloy smiled at him then. "She wants you to hear this."

Nil hesitated, not out of fear, but rather uncertainty before he bit down and activated his own focus. 

"There are some anomalous agents present in your body, Aloy. The scans are detecting the presence of organic toxins. Likely something ingested."

"I _feel_ fine," Aloy shrugged.

"Rendering you in your infancy, I based evolutionary adaptations off the current Nora. Nora diet has left them with great tolerance to organic toxins found in most plant species."

Gaia paused.

"Calcium absorption has been temporarily affected, which has slowed the union of bone."

And at that, Aloy grew very quiet indeed. Her face turning pale as she looked to him, and Nil saw the wetness in her eyes.

And then she set a pouch on the countertop. 

"Is the organic toxin present in this?" She asked Gaia. There was a tremor in her voice.

"Yes, I'm reading high concentrations."

"Where did you get that?" Nil asked her. Aloy's bottom lip trembled. Her face was a mixture of hurt and rage and confusion.

"It was in the supplies Erend gave me."


	25. Chapter 25

"He tried to _poison_ you?" Nil tone was flat but his voice came out as a low hiss; words resonating with something dark - something menacing. Eyes narrowed. Slivers of cold steel. Aloy had seen that hard silver stare plenty of times before.

And she shook her head. _No_ , it wasn't intentional. She knew people - knew _Erend_ and he wasn't the type of man to stab a friend in the back. She thought back to the supplies he'd given her - thought hard. The barely fitting armour that was obviously hastily cobbled together. The _food;_ almost perfectly a half weeks rations.

"He split his own supplies with me," she said with the confidence of someone who knew for certain rather than someone making an educated guess. "I wasn't the target."

 _"Then he's a fool."_ Nil growled out and Aloy heard the anger still growling in his voice. That Erend might have killed her inadvertently. Killed himself. Nil wasn't a man with any softness for accidental death. 

"We have to leave as soon as possible." And she touched his fisted hand, feeling the tension in it jolt through her like electricity. 

He inclined his head just briefly; the only sign of agreement, but Aloy saw something like exhaustion wash over his face. Fatigue now lingered where anger had burned moments previous.

"We should probably speak to the prisoner first. He might know something of use," he finally rasped, concealing whatever he was actually feeling with one of those casual sheepish smiles that didn't altogether make him look innocent. It warred on his face with the anger still burning and the unknown trouble weighing in on him. 

"And what prisoner is _this?"_ Aloy asked him.

Outside, after speaking a moment with Varl - grasping each others arms in a show of brotherhood that made Aloy's chest burn with joy, Nil led her to a small rundown hut. It's roof had been partially burned away. Maybe when when Hades had come for them, maybe after. Aloy couldn't remember seeing it. There had been so many close calls for the Nora.

The snow had been falling thick and heavy and already one side of the makeshift prison had filled with it. It piled against the wall in a steep slope that stretched almost to the top of the opening itself. Though the door was guarded, had the prisoner been able to walk he might have very well been able to clamber free.

Clear of the freezing ice a gagged man with a bald head was laying on his side, hands tied behind his back, rope fixed securely from his wrists to his ankles. Aloy's nose wrinkled at the smell of him. He'd relieved himself once or twice where he lay and the stench of it burned her nostrils; turning her stomach. She heaved an unhappy breath. Nora didn't take prisoners. Not usually. Food, water, a bucket - it wouldn't have occurred to them. A far as Sona would be concerned, this was a man already living with breaths borrowed.

"Cut his bonds," Aloy said looking to Nil. She almost expected him to argue. Complain that this man was dangerous and would put them at risk. But he said nothing, and Aloy remembered what his favorite pastime had been. _Danger._ Both necessary and the unnecessary kind would always be Nil's thing.

Silently, he cut the rope and the Carja rolled into his stomach clawing and coughing out his gag. Hoarse and parched, Aloy heard him curse her. Curse Nil. Curse the Nora. He'd have likely spat at her feet if he'd had the saliva for it.

"I don't believe in keeping prisoners. So you only get two options. Tell me what you know and we'll give you some food and drop you at the border. Or you can choose to die here and we'll make it quick."

The man lunged up from the floor. A last final burst of strength as he swung for Aloy. But it was slow - telegraphed. With the ease of experience she blocked his fist with her good arm and using his own momentum sent him sailing headfirst into the wall. He flew like a doll, thrown by a childish tantrum and hit the wood with a heavy crack before sliding to the floor. Sitting there in his own soiled uniform, he laughed at them.

"So this is why you betrayed your King?" He turned to Nil, spitting a globule of blood at his feet - mouth wet with it - and wiped his chin on his sleeve. "A pair of tits and a pretty face?"

Nil crouched down and smiled slowly at him. "She has a _very_ appreciative right hook, too." 

Aloy almost scoffed at him. But she hadn't missed the obvious. Nil knew this man. Was that why he was still alive? She wouldn't have assumed Nil to be sentimental. But it had also never occurred to her that he might know others. 

"Tell me, what does Lord Anis hope to accomplish with all this? What's the point in trying to assassinate the King?"

Her question brutally murdered the smug, snarling smile on the man's face. Suddenly he was glancing back and forth between Nil and Aloy with uncertainty.

"How the fuck do you know that?" 

Aloy stepped in passed the doorway while Nil watched them silently. 

"I ran into your reinforcements at the north gate," Aloy said with a heavy breath. " _They_ unfortunately ran into the thundersnow."

The man's face twisted in frustration. 

"Fucking _weather._ Never should have marched. _"_ he bit out.

She could have laughed - almost did, but the memory of dead faces frozen in terror quashed the humour she otherwise found in it all.

"You know, I said exactly the same." Aloy said, leaning back against the door frame, crossing her arms. She looked to Nil. "From what I hear, Carja never march outside of Spring or Summer. Orders must have some from someone too inexperienced to know better, or too arrogant to listen to good advice."

"Got it all figured out, don't you."

Aloy only smiled in reply.

"You'd really let me go free if I tell you?"

"I would," she said softly.

"I don't believe you."

"I don't lie. We've already had the Carja survivors deposited at Daytower."

His face twisted in rage.

"Then you're a moron."

Aloy frowned but let the words wash away. The man was scared and desperate. 

"Maybe," she whispered sadly, before turning to Nil.

"He's confirmed all I needed to know." She didn't mention aloud what they both knew. That even after days of solitary imprisonment he hadn't broken. He wouldn't tell them anything new. "We'll take him with us and leave him at the gate. I'll arrange for a change of clothes and some food."

"Risky." Was all Nil said and Aloy laughed at him. His eyes lighting warmly at the sound. 

And the Carja clambered to his feet. Staring them down like an animal.

"Very confident for a slip of a girl younger than the yogurt in my pantry."

"I have reason to be," Aloy said flatly. "When your yogurt learns how to take down a deathbringer with a bow, we'll talk." She nodded to Nil, signaling they should leave and he ducked out of the hut; he was a few inches taller than her even without the headpiece he used to wear and he'd to dip his head to avoid hitting the beam. 

"Food in his belly and a change of pants and he'll be reaching for a knife to give you a new wide, bloodier smile. He won't have a change of heart for a hot meal and a hug."

Nil said at last a few feet from the hut and Aloy stopped in her tracks. He was right of course. Amrus would take her mercy as a weak point to be exploited. She'd seen it before. She would see it again.

"I know." The air was icy and she felt it burn her lungs as she drew in a deep breath. Nil was right of course. Even if she hadn't have met the captive she'd have trusted Nil's assessment. "What exactly were his preferred weapons?"

"Throwing knives."

Aloy made a face. Knives didn't have the reach of arrows, but arrows were easier to dodge. 

"Was he any good with them?" She asked, her voice small so as not to be overheard.

"One of the best I've ever seen." Nil admitted. "And Kestrel's train for interrogation. You can't even trust what he didn't say."

"Great." Nora were at a disadvantage against throwing knives and Aloy had already made the decision not to execute him. But the fact remained that she urgently had to make it back to Meridian and she couldn't leave him here where he could do actual damage.

"We tie him up, take him with us, see what we can find out. I know the Commander at Daytower. They might be able to get more out of him."

Aloy understood that this Carja - Amrus Nil had called him, would be a dangerous tagalong, but if he was a Kestrel, then she already knew she hadn't the stomach for the type of torture that would crack his shell. That it would likely be Nil that she would be leaving with the unsavoury task, and she didn't want that. He deserved better than to be dragged back into a life he'd already tried so hard to leave behind. She knew she was better off mitigating the risk to the tribe by taking Amrus out of Nora lands and hoping that the man ran his mouth and let something useful slip on the way.

"As good a plan as any."

"Not going to offer to stay behind and torture him?"

"I miss the warmth of the sun. Blood cools much too quickly."

Aloy knew Nil enough now to know when he was deflecting. He used dark statements like that as conversation killers. There was rarely anything to be said in their wake. 

"You sure you'll be up to the weather? It's been a crazy hot Winter in Carja. I don't even know what Spring and Summer are going to be like,"

"Tornados and dust storms on the flat lands," Nil said licking his bottom lip. "Mornings so hot you can cook breakfast eggs on the stones. Cloudless night skies. Salt on the Spring winds."

It stuck Aloy then just how much Nil had given up to help her people in her absence. His homeland thrummed in his blood, much like hers did. They might not always find themselves there, but it remained with them still. 

She braced against a particularly chill wind.

"You've sold me." She said with a smile.

Aloy had only just made it back from Carja and now found herself about to head back into the Sun Kingdom.

"Varl!" Aloy spotted him speaking with his mother at the entrance to the Mountain and beckoned him over. "Bowl of something hot and something cleaner to wear. He's unbound, so no less than three guards at all times."

"You're taking him with you?"

Varl was always sharp. A trait likely inherited from his mother.

"He might still know something. But I can't leave him here to become another threat."

"That should make my mother a little happy at least." Varl looked to the north, eyes scanning the horizon.

Aloy followed suit and swallowed. Seeing the same thing. It was another storm coming down from the Cut. The clouds so dark it was like night was encroaching on the day. 

_"That's_ a problem, Aloy."

"I've been through worse."

"I guarantee Nil hasn't though. Your Carja prisoner certainly not."

"I'll be fine." Nil said with a smirk. "Amrus might lose some more toes but he'll live."

Daytower would be a full days march in clear weather but from the look of the sky, the worst storm would be on them by tomorrow and Aloy knew she couldn't wait until morning. If they set out before dark they would hit the Carja border before dawn. The worst of the storm would pass them.

The Nora saw the storm coming and as the afternoon expired they had already begun to barricade the entrance to the mountain. The patrols had returned to the sanctuary of ruins. Men, women and children began moving all the wood and food stockpiles inside the mountain. Preparing for the lastest system to hit. 

Aloy watched as four braves dragged Amrus out of his prison and out into the wind. They'd dressed him in clean Carja heavy armour. Likely the cleanest they could find after stripping the dead. He wore two cloaks - heavy Carja cloth. But the Nora wouldn't give him any of their own furs. He hadn't earned them and Aloy feared that even clad as he was, if they were caught in the middle of the coming snow fall, it wouldn't make much of a difference.

Nil dressed as a Nora would have. Oil treated skins. Furs. Leather plate. His hair had grown along with his beard and he scarcely resembled the man who'd fought her in the Carja hills - the broken soldier desperate to die. He seemed more contented. More stable. Nil was someone with the focus of a glinthawk when it came down to the things he wanted, but he seemed to want less these days. 

"You look..." Aloy started to say but Amrus interrupted.

"Like a fucking inbred Nora savage," the bald man snarled even as Varl pulled the ropes around his hands and shoulder taut and he stumbled, falling to one knee.

Nil only smiled softly. His lips pulling into a serpentine grin. Equally as venomous.

"I think 'warm' is the word you're looking for," he offered.

Like Aloy, Nil knew that Carja gear was no good substitute for Nora or Banuk Winter clothing. Amrus would know cold. _True_ cold. Maybe for the first time. If he thought the weather he'd marched through was bad on the way in. Out was going to be truly eye opening. Aloy worried a little for Nil. What she'd experienced in the Cut had made her redefine her own concepts. And she'd grown up in the high mountains. This would be a new experience for him, too. 

"Wrap your head with this." Aloy offered the bald man a length of rabbit skin. 

"Why would I do that?"

"Because if the storm hits us before we can get through the mountains, you'll freeze to death without it."

He glared at her but snatched the fur with bound hands anyway.

It was still early but the moon was already rising amid a light falling of snow as they started to march out. Aloy led the way while Nil guarded the rear, their prisoner between them. His hands tied and a loop of rope around his chest which Nil held tightly. She knew these lands even in the dark. Blindfolded, Aloy would know every step between them and Daytower.

"You go by Nil now, then." 

Aloy's ears perked up. She couldn't help it. Nil never talked about his old life and curiosity got the best of her. She heard the grunt as the prisoner stumbled, caught, as the slack on his ropes vanished and Nil's faltered steps pulled him backwards. His laughter raked chilly fingers down her back. The laughter of a predator who'd just caught a whiff of blood in the air.

"You know the man you've shacked up with, Nora? You know what he's capable of? _Really_ capable of?"

Aloy stopped dead in her tracks and spun. Even in knee deep snow she was standing in front of Amrus in two heartbeats. He could do nothing as she pushed him down into the snow and slipped a knife against his throat.

"Do you know what _I'm_ capable of?" she hissed, before she glanced up at Nil's surprised face. "I'm growing tired of the sound of your voice, Carja. So this is my new plan. You live only at _Nil's_ whim. You live unless he decides otherwise. I don't think I care anymore for your insults." The edge of her blade bit just a little deeper into his flesh, tasting blood and Aloy narrowed her eyes. "Dead or alive?"

"Alive."

Aloy pressed the knife just a little harder before smiling at Nil. 

"Are you _sure?_ I'm not quite sure I like the way he's been speaking to you."

And Nil barked out a short sharp laugh.

"Accusing me of things I readily admit to doing is hardly an insult."

"True," Aloy tilted the man's angry sneering face up at her and she looked him dead in the eye. "Though, I'm not sure I liked his tone."

Up until this point Aloy had seen him fed and that he'd received a change of clothes. She'd been kind to him. The sudden shift in the dynamic she could see clearly unsettled Amrus. With his life now dangling by a thread Nil clutched instead.

Aloy sighed and let the man rise to his feet. 

"Crazy bitch," were the words that followed after her. "Could have _killed_ me." He mocked.

"Hers are hands forged for slaying gods. You could only _dream."_

Aloy heard Nil's wistful words and suppressed a snort. He was never shy of theatrics. Anyone else would hear only seriousness in his voice but she heard the soft amusement. That was as much for her ears as the prisoners.

They were perhaps an hour or so out from dawn when Aloy heard the first crack of thunder. The sky flashed with lightning and her eyes widened at the black clouds. Heavy and swollen, so dark it looked like they were filled with ink.

 _"Nil!"_ Aloy called out in warning as she upped her pace moving into a jog. 

"I see it," he said. The bound Carja soldier cried out in indignation as Nil collided with him, pushing him forward. "If you plan on keeping your hands and feet. Move faster."

"I'm going as fast as I can." The man's voice was a broken gasp. For him the pace already had been brutal.

"If you've the breath to talk, you aren't putting enough effort into _running."_ Aloy barked without humour.

As they so often did, the storm hit them suddenly and violently. Dawn was breaking when visibility became non-existent and the snow began falling so thick - winds so fierce that Aloy couldn't see her hands or feet. It tore at her skin like knives - blistering, burning knives and Aloy felt hubris. Thinking she'd known. Thinking she could have prepared for this. The force of the wind pushed back against her. The snow growing so deep she could no longer tell if she was on the correct path; if they'd even made the upward slope to Daytower. Glancing behind she could couldn't see the Carja soldier and behind him Nil had vanished as well into the wall of white and wind.

And then the thought stuck Aloy like lightning and she tapped her focus.

"Can you hear me?"

" _Barely. I think this thing has frozen to my skull._ "

Her jaw was beginning to chatter but that pulled a painful smile to her lips. Knowing he was still following lifted her spirits somewhat. 

"Are you following okay?"

" _Your tracks reassemble Behemoth prints. But you're making mine a much easier path to follow_." 

His voice shook a little - strained - and Aloy felt a sliver of fear sharper than any north wind, shoot down her back. She didn't bother asking him how he was. There was no point. Instead she pressed forward. The snow now stretched passed her thighs and moving was measured now, not in feet, but in inches. She kept to the left of the incline and when she felt it begin to tilt, she knew that she was on the right road. The relief was palpable. To her right on the rise would be the leftovers of the very first bandit camp her and Nil had ever cleared together, and up ahead would be Daytower. The gates barring the long road down into Carja territory. The road to sunlight and warmth. Aloy didn't ever think she'd be this happy to leave the Embrace. Not for a second time.

The wind eased up, blocked by the mountains as the path carried them out of their headlong confrontation with the storm. Aloy whooped out in triumph. Her voice carrying far in the clearing air. She glanced back at Nil and found his bearded face white with frost and Amrus's still body slung over his shoulder. 

"Nil!?" She shouted down to him, about fifty feet between them. His face was pale, and he lumbered forward sluggishly, the weight of the body and gear he carried leaving him slow and awkward. Aloy slipped the last ten feet in fresh powder to reach him where she slid Amrus off of his shoulders and onto her own. Nil collapsed to his knees suddenly relieved of his burden and Aloy wobbled, the weight catching her off balance. She'd no idea how he'd summoned the strength or will power to make it this far carrying someone who was essentially a prisoner. Someone they'd almost executed a day ago.

"I'm not going to miss this," he said with a smile as he looked up at her. The blue marks on his face had been almost stripped away. His skin was angry and blistered from the snow.

"Me neither." She said with a laugh. "We're almost there. We passed Two-Teeth about an hour ago."

They pressed on and the further they travelled on the path the better the weather became. Aloy almost stopped dead in her tracks to take in the single beam of sunlight that broke through the parted clouds. The first sliver of warmth on her skin. She let herself breath deep and exhaled the panic and fear and darkness of the long night passed.

At the mountain turn just before the gates she passed the prisoner back to a stronger, altogether cheerier Nil and prepared to talk them back into Carja. She'd no idea what awaited them. For all she knew, Avad could have been dethroned and the guards under orders to kill her on sight. Aloy could only guess. They would know soon enough.

"Open up!" Aloy yelled and the wooden gates creaked dangerously as they swung open. Ice shattering and grinding as the Carja on the walls opened their way.

"Aloy? What are you doing here? The _storm_..." Commander Balahn came rushing down from his quarters. He'd draped a heavy coat of furs over his shoulders but still his lips were blue - hands white with the cold. The heavy infantry he normally kept standing guard at all times shook at their posts. They'd only caught the edges of it up here.

"Believe me, we're now very well aquatinted with the storm."

At her signal Nil dropped Amrus to the ground, the exclamation of pain the only indicator the man still lived at all.

"I have one of yours here. I hope Sona's gift arrived intact."

Balahn's eyes flickered to Nil's face, narrowing slightly.

"Two of mine, it seems," he said, looking directly at Nil before turning away. "Yes, the others arrived at the gates cold and miserable, but alive. This one?"

"One of the assassin's still breathing after their ill-fated attempt to kill the Nora Matriarchs."

"A mistake not twice made." The Carja Commander seemed to remember himself and he extended a hand up to the office. Warm light still glowed in the windows. "Come. The fire's still hot and there's breakfast at least. My men will see to the prisoner."

Aloy watched Nil shake his head and hair free of the loose snow. He looked to her with a questioning eye. Whether they would keep going or accept Balahn's invitation. Aloy knew him well enough to know Nil would favor continuing on, but she knew they'd both almost hit their limits on this. A few hours reprieve before they moved would do them no harm. She could override something to carry them the rest of the way if need be. The time could be made up. Balahn might also know something useful. They were on friendly enough terms that he might surrender the information freely.

Aloy let him led them indoors and she couldn't contain the happy sigh as she was hit with a wall of heat. Smells of spiced bread and fruit wine. She shrugged off her collar of fur and set her bow by the door. Begrudgingly, Nil did the same though he kept his other weapons. 

"I don't relish a march through the Sacred Lands in the grips of a Nora Winter," Balahn smiled politely extending a hand to the fireplace. Flames currently blazing.

"That was _no_ Nora Winter," Nil said gruffly. "Banuk lands get Winter's like that," he huffed. Colour was beginning to return to his face. 

What could be disguised in appearance was revealed in his light Carja tones. The soft shapes of his vowels were a dead giveaway and Balahn fixed his with a hard stare.

"So I wasn't imagining it. And what would a Carja be doing this far east dressed in Nora furs?" The outpost commander questioned.

" _Hunting_ ," Nil said simply with a casual shrug.

"Wrong season to be hunting turkeys, no?"

"My prey in the Embrace had fewer feathers."

And Aloy swallowed awkwardly as the men stared each other down. She swallowed.

"Balahn, what do you know of what's happening in Meridian. I only heard about an attempt on the King as I passed back over into Nora lands. And then to find out they'd sent a death squad across the border."

"From what I know, there's been no official declaration of war. The treaty still stands. I suspected something was off when they passed through here; Diplomats are very rarely armed so heavily in times of peace. But their papers were signed and had the royal seal. I could not stop them."

Aloy pondered that. 

"So the King's still alive?"

"Yes. But there's been unrest. When he took ill, many dissenters took that as their sign to move and from what I can gather, Carja troops are being periodically hit on the roads."

"By who? Shadow Carja?"

"Nothing quite so organized. The attacks seem random. Opportunistic. Plain clothed. Scavenged weaponry."

Nil spoke out then, disbelief tinging his words.

"It sounds like you're saying _ordinary Carja citizens_ are leading these attacks against the King."

"If you pick up a sword against Sun-King Avad, you're a traitor, _not_ a Carja citizen." Balahn snapped back. He gestured to a platter of cheese and bread, eyes boring into Nil's momentarily before making his excuses and leaving them to recover by the fire. Aloy thanked him but when he was gone, neither of them touched the food. Aloy knew it was likely perfectly fine, but she could no longer be certain. They would need to watch their food and drink from here on out. Nil didn't need to be told.

They stripped off the rest of their heavy furs and set them to dry by the fire and Aloy felt almost naked without it. Even doning her lighter leathers, she still felt practically naked. She looked Nil over, but he'd fared well, all things considered. 

"Here," Aloy reached out and caught his arm. From an small container she dabbed some ointment across his burned nose and cheeks. Something she'd picked up in the Cut. 

She leaned in to apply the balm and his eyes bored into hers. So many emotions swirling in their depths that Aloy's heart raced and butterflies danced in her stomach. An ache lower as his expression turned burning and his hands slipped to her waist. Blood was pounding in her ears. Aloy leaned in and left a chaste kiss on his lips.

"As much as I understand the allure of ruining another Carja Commander's office. I'd rather wait till we're out on the road and it's safer."

"Out on the road with the Stalkers and Behemoths and Long Legs?" Nil grinned before catching her bottom lip between his teeth. The growl of his breath washed over her and she closed her eyes against the rush of it.

"Safer than here," she whispered back to him.

"And if danger is the point?"

Aloy kissed him again, harder than before, sighing as she broke the embrace.

"I expect you'll get your fill soon enough."

When their furs had dried and the fire had chased the chill from her bones, Aloy packed it up. Nil packaged some of the bread and cheese and stored it away. "Bait" was all he'd said.

"The prisoner?"

"Leave him. He's the Sun-King's prisoner now." Aloy said. 


	26. Chapter 26

Nil crouched low in the dry grass watching transfixed as Aloy overrode the Sawtooth prowling through the brush. She was difficult to follow in the dark and he'd had the benefit of having following her movements since she left his side. Having lived and trained with the Nora he saw the very skills they taught - saw them perfected. She moved soundlessly. Pausing moments before the Sawtooth turned to face her as if she knew the future, before gaining ground the instant it looked away. He was no machine hunter, but those skills were ones that carried well.

Where Aloy could, she avoided machines completely unless she needed materials, so Nil appreciated that seeing this was a rare experience for him. Watching her creep up on it. Silent. Deadly. He must have truly been chasing death to think he'd ever stood a chance against her. Nil studied the way the machine changed after she touched it. The blue lighting up it's face. The way it's features softened. It made him want to see her take on larger prey.

Nil had wondered why she'd chosen the Sawtooth, but quickly realized that it would follow a path around their planned camp and guard them from other hostile machines while they slept. The machine required no rest, and would patrol the area for them without complaint. Aloy had already neutralized two long-legs prowling the ravine just east of them. This would enable them both to sleep. 

And Nil was very much looking forward to sleep. He was tired, and only back in the sun kingdom had he truly realized how bone weary he'd been in the Embrace. How the cold and the dark had leeched the energy and life from his bones. He hadn't realised just how difficult it had been. Even though it had been worth it. Even though he was faster and stronger than he'd ever been before. The Nora were a dangerous and terrifyingly hardy people and working with them had left his aim better. His stamina higher. His hands were blades tempered by a Banuk Winter.

Watching his wildling creep through the grass like a fire haired stalker, and feeling the hum of victory in the air as the Sawtooth was hers made his blood burn for her. They'd been parted so long and their reunion had been so rushed, Nil hadn't fully realized how much he'd missed even her casual company. And he knew these slow nights might also be the last calm ones for a while to come.

While Aloy scoured the area to make sure there were no other threats in range that might spot a camp, Nil set a small fire in the darkness and put the fish he'd caught into the flames with some herbs and salt. When Aloy returned she sat down beside him, and practically inhaled her portion, licking the salt from her fingertips before beginning the exhaustive routine of brushing out and braiding her hair. 

"Let me," Nil offered, taking the comb from her still shocked fingers.

"You want to comb my hair?" 

He paused at the uncertain tone in her voice and laughed before letting a warm smile break his otherwise indifferent composure.

 _"Please?"_ He extended a hand for the comb. Her arm was still healing from it's break and it would need to be healed for what faced them in Meridian. Nil told himself it was to avoid her hurting herself but he knew that wasn't true. 

"Okay. But I'll have you know I broke the spirits of many girls in the Nora - as many spirits as combs."

"I don't shy away from a challenge."

Kneeling behind her, Nil began by taking the bindings from the ends of her braids and unweaving them. The weather had been harsh and going from desert to snow and back again had left it dry - dusty. Carefully he broke her hair into segments and began to brush through it, easing out the knots and dirt and debris just like he'd seen her do plenty of times before. Occasionally his hands lingered. Firelight catching just so and his breath hitching with the colours shining through. _So beautiful_ , he mouthed silently.

When the worst of the knots had been dealt with, he used a damp rag and wiped it through in pieces, before running oil covered fingers through the ends. Nil worked slowly, half hypnotized by the waves of copper that rolled and danced in the firelight; smouldering in his fingers.

Aloy mewled at the attention. A sound so rich in pleasure that he bit down on his tongue to refrain from making any noise himself and disturbing her. She changed position, choosing instead to sit and Nil did the same, letting her creep back into the space between his legs where he slipped one hand around her waist, palm pressed flat against her stomach; fingers tracing her skin lightly through the fabric. He leaned in close enough for his breath to brush her ear.

"Full, wildling?" he asked, his voice a whisper, gently setting aside the comb and taking one of her hands to his mouth where he wrapped his lips around her fingers, one by one. They still tasted of salt. 

The other hand pressed flush against her stomach slipped lower as Nil released her hand and drew the lobe of her ear in between his teeth. Aloy's full body shudder made him close his eyes in rapturous anticipation. 

"Yes - yes, it was _very_ good." 

She purred out, leaning back against him. Nil's fingers found the straps and ties on her armour and within a heartbeat he'd loosened the leather and slid both hands up underneath the front of her tunic. When his hands found her breasts she arched back hard, and he set his mouth against her throat feeling her pulse beat furiously against his lips. The scrape of his teeth against her skin made her curse breathlessly.

"I love you," the words slipped out absently as he wound his fingers in her hair and angled her head to the side to expose more skin. But she paused, stiffening and Nil stopped immediately sensing there was something wrong.

"What is it?" He asked, his voice low and eyes immediately scanning the grass. He'd expected her to point out something in the darkness, but instead she twisted in his arms to face him. Her face solemn. 

"Nil, I can't promise you that at the end of all of this I'll still be here. I can't promise you children or a future." She said, her voice growing quiet. "I love you, too. And when I die, whenever that is, that is going to be the truth I carry with me. But I can't..."

Nil stopped her with a gentle kiss to her jaw.

"You....right now. That is all and everything I could ever want." he said reaching up to cup her cheek. "This will _always_ be enough," he told her. Nil already knew he would follow her - support her until the bitter end. Til he fell, or her path took her where he couldn't follow. She would defend this world, but he would defend _her_.

And Nil watched as she slowly stood; slipping free of the leather tunic entirely and shimmying out of her pants and boots. Naked and unashamed, Aloy waited there in front of him. Her head tilted at a soft angle, studying his expression. Not an ounce of that conservative modesty that often haunted Carja society. And as he stared up at her, drinking her in she extended her hand to him beckoning him to follow. Nil laughed, climbing to his feet as Aloy tugged at the collar of his leathers, and like she'd done, he slipped it over his head, shedding his pants and boots, stripping down until he was as bare as her. The night air caressed the skin on his back and Nil suppressed a shudder.

And then Aloy took her hand and set it against the center of his chest, and brought his hand up and set it at the center of her own. Nil's heart beat like a hummingbirds wings beneath his ribs.

"I love you..." she said seriously. "...and I promise to stand with you for as long as you'll have me. I swear to stand by your side at the dawn, and at the dusk to have your back against the darkness."

Emotion hit him hard. A sharp, solid punch to the gut that rocked him on his feet. The Nora didn't have marriages. Didn't marry. Every day with their partner was a choice. He took in a breath examining her exquisite face.

"I love you _so much_."

He lifted a hand to cup her cheek and there was such gentle warmth in her eyes it made his own water. Felt his vision become glassy. He drew in another shaky breath to steady himself.

"At the dawn of the world there was fire," he started, gazing into her green eyes and letting a smile tug at his lips. "And from the fire sprang forth all life. And the fire's blinding light cast shadows upon the world; shadows to forever chase the flames. But at the end when the light is gone, there will be darkness, and shadows no more. Because shadows can not exist without a light to follow." Nil leaned in and kissed her softly. "I am with you to whatever end awaits." Nil kissed her again, harder, pulling her flush against him. "Gladly" he muttered into her mouth. _"Eagerly,"_ he whispered to her, picking her up off her feet and setting her carefully down into the bedrolls. "I have never loved anything like I do you. I will _never_ love anything like I do you."

Nil didn't hold back, lost in the feel of her. Tangled in the cries and moans. The bittersweet and glorious feel of her nails raking his skin. The delicious agony of her teeth caressing his flesh. Marking him with sweet bruises - treasured memories. He moved until sweat stung his eyes and kissed her until his lips were swollen. He swallowed her sweet words of love and adoration. Taking them into himself. And when she cried out her end and coaxed him to follow, Nil collapsed at her side, pulling her against him. Laughter ringing in his ears. His own. Because in his wildest dreams of death and glory and the ever present speck of indestructible, unattainable salvation, did he ever fathom that this would be where his road took him.

"My hair's tangled again," she snorted, looking up at his face from under a damp brow. 

Nil moved some strands out of her eyes and reached for the comb again, passing it through her hair for a second time as she rested her head against his chest. 

"I think I'm hungry again, too," she laughed.

Nil only smiled - she always was, Aloy ate like a legion of Oseram when they were on the move and he'd made sure to catch extra when he'd had the chance. When they'd dressed again, and while the fish was cooking, Nil finally helped her with her braids, taking one side while she did the other. His were nowhere as neat but Aloy was beaming when they were finished. 

Nil took her arm in his and examined the now fading bruises, his thumbs circling. 

"It doesn't hurt anymore," she told him.

And Nil felt the urge to sleep wash over him. Out against the night a blue light patrolled. Even if they slept - truly slept, they were safe out here. No Carja or Banuk or Oseram would dare venture this path, certainly not at night, and any hostile machines that came close would be attacked by the Sawtooth circling them. Their guard. 

They were heading toward far more dangerous lands. Ones filled with spies and courtesans. Machines - animals were predictable in comparison.

"Are you worried about Meridian?"

"Yes. Terrified, actually."

Her voice was even but quiet. 

"Your friend is far more familiar with the dangers of the King's court. I'm sure he's managed to survive."

"That's not what's worrying me." Aloy finally said, her words had turned ragged - almost desperate. They'd laid down and Nil had pulled her against him. She clutched his arm tightly to her chest. "What if I'm wrong about him? About all of them."

"Many that came to defend Meridian, came only because you called. They came for you. Fought for _you_." He wrapped his other arm around her as if that would protect her from her own yet unrealized fears. "You see people. See more than they wish, even."

"I like to think that beyond circumstances or upbringing, that everyone has the potential to do the right thing. But I know that doesn't mean they will," she admitted. 

Nil though long and hard on that. Letting his mind digest her very honest; very legitimate fears. Aloy gave everyone an opportunity. Even knowing that that one free pass might very well be the end of her. 

He smiled into her hair. 

"I won't let your kindness be squandered." His arms tightened a little more then. Holding her as close as he could. "You can think the best, and I will think the worst. And let them loose their arrows whatever way they will. We will face that together."

Whatever hell came for her. It would pass through his bloody arrows first. The voice of our teeth would sing for them. And they would know it's name - experience its meaning.


End file.
